1. Macbeth: The Timeline of a Tragic Hero’s Descent
‘Thunder and lightning’ – S.D. 1
‘You see her eyes are open.’ – Doctor
‘Ay but their sense is shut.’- Gentlewoman
Macbeth: The Timeline of a Tragic Hero’s Descent
‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair’ – the witches
‘Look how she rubs her hands.’ - Doctor
‘brave Macbeth’ - Captain
‘’Thunder’ – S.D.
‘Yet here’s a spot.’ – Lady Macbeth
‘O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!’ – King Duncan
‘I fear thou play’dst most foully for’t’– Banquo
‘Finger of birth-strangled babe’ – 3rd witch
‘The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What, will these hands ne’er
be clean? – Lady Macbeth
‘What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won.’ – King Duncan
‘I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters’– Banquo
‘Fail not our feast’– Macbeth to Banquo 2
‘Something wicked this way comes’ – 2nd witch
‘To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo stick deep’ / ‘He hath a wisdom which doth guide his valour to act in safety’ / ‘fruitless crown’ / ‘barren sceptre’ / ‘For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind’ – Macbeth’s soliloquy
‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!’
– Lady Macbeth
‘That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth’ – Banquo about the witches
‘I think not of them’ Macbeth
The witches’ second set of prophecies:
‘beware Macduff’
‘none of woman born shall harm Macbeth’
‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him’
‘This will never be’ - Macbeth
‘All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!’ – the witches
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me/The handle toward my hand?’ /
‘and on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood’/
’Whiles I threat, he lives’
– Macbeth’s soliloquy before King
Duncan’s murder
‘This disease is beyond my practice.’ - Doctor
‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater’ – the witches about Banquo
‘What’s done cannot be undone’
– Lady Macbeth
‘Both of you know Banquo was your enemy’ – Macbeth to the murderers 1 1
‘What, can the devil speak true?
[ASIDE]’ – Banquo 1
‘some say he’s mad’ - Caithness 2 3
‘Nought’s had, all’s spent / where our desire is got without content’ - Lady Macbeth
‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t’ – Lady Macbeth
‘Horrible sight!’ – Macbeth of the image of Banquo’s descendants
‘the mind I sway by, and the heart
I bear, shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.’ – Macbeth
‘O worthiest cousin.’ – King Duncan 4
‘My dearest partner of greatness’ – Macbeth
‘Consider it not so deeply’ – Lady Macbeth
‘We have scorched the snake, not killed it’ / ‘Ere we eat our meal in fear, and sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams which shake us nightly. Better be with the dead’ – Macbeth’s monologue
‘The castle of Macduff I will surprise’ - Macbeth
‘I fear thy nature. It is too full of the milk of human kindness’ – Lady Macbeth
‘Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’ - Macbeth
‘thou lily-livered boy.’ – Macbeth 1
‘I have lived long enough. My way of
life is fallen in to the sear, the yellow leaf.’ / ‘honour, love, obedience, troops
of friends, I must not look to have’ – Macbeth’s soliloquy
‘The raven himself is hoarse’ / ‘Come you spirits’ / ‘unsex me here’ / ‘take my milk for gall’ / ‘Make thick my blood’ – Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy
‘I’m afraid to think what I have done’ - Macbeth
‘What had he done, to make him fly the land?’ – Lady Macduff of husband
‘You must leave this.’ Lady Macbeth
‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’ - Macbeth
‘O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife.’ Macbeth
‘He has killed me, mother’
– Macduff’s son 3
‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’ – Lady Macbeth 2
‘Cure her of that.’ – Macbeth (of wife) 5
‘My hands are of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white’- Lady Macbeth
‘there shall be done a deed of dreadful note.’ - Macbeth of Banquo’s murder
‘This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues’ – Malcolm
‘The Queen, my lord, is dead.’ - Seyton 2 2
‘We still have judgement here’ / ‘He’s here
in double trust’ / Not bear the knife myself’
/ ‘Vaulting ambition’ – Macbeth’s soliloquy
‘She should have died hereafter; there would have been time for such a word.’
/ ‘Life’s but a walking shadow’
– Macbeth’s soliloquy
‘O horror, horror, horror!’ - Macduff
‘There’s but one down; the son is fled.’ –
3rd Murderer
‘I am not treacherous’ - Macduff 3
‘Esteem him as a lamb, being compared with my confineless harms’ – Malcolm testing Macduff’s loyalty 5
‘Your royal father’s murdered.’ - Macduff
‘We will proceed no further in this business’
– Macbeth
‘There the grown serpent lies.’ – Macbeth of Banquo being dead in a ditch
‘I did kill them.’ – Macbeth of the guards
‘They have tied me to a stake. I
cannot fly, but bear like I must fight
the course.’ - Macbeth
‘When you durst do it, then you were a man
’ – Lady Macbeth
‘I’ll to England.’- Malcolm
‘Which of you have done this?’ – Macbeth of Banquo’s ghost. 3
‘O Scotland, Scotland!’ – Macduff’s despair
‘To Ireland I.’- Donalbain
‘tyrant’ – Macduff 7
‘dashed the brains out’ – Lady Macbeth
‘he grows worse and worse’ - Lady Macbeth
‘Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons are stolen away and fled, which puts upon them suspicion of the deed.’ - Macduff
‘your wife and babes savagely slaughtered’ - Ross
‘coward’ – Macduff 8
‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know’ – Macbeth
‘I am in blood stepped in so far’
- Macbeth 7
‘dead butcher and his fiend-like
queen’ – Malcolm 9 4 4
‘Macbeth is ripe for shaking’ – Malcolm 3
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5