Shakespeare - Macbeth

A story of ambition and desire and how they are the source of unhappiness, madness and destruction.

„Fair is foul and foul is fair“ (Shakespeare, 1994, 8).

„Duncan: ... Go pronounce his present

death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Ross: I’ll see it done.

Duncan: What he hath lost noble Macbeth has won.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, 9).

„Macbeth: ... My thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical,

Shakes so my single state of man, that function

Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is

But what is not.

Banquo: Look how our partner’s rapt.

Macbeth (aside): If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me

Without my stir.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.19).

„Macbeth: (...) Stars hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and deep desires;

The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be

Which the eye fears, when it is done to see.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.27).

„L. Macbeth: ... What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.29).

„L. Macbeth: Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter,

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in me instant.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.33).

„Macbeth: I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’erlaps itself.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.39).

„L.Macbeth: Was the hope drunk

Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?

And was it now to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely? From this time

Such I account thy love. Art thou afeared

To be the same in thine own act and valour

As thou art in desire?“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.39).

„Macbeth: Prithee peace,

I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.

L.Macbeth: (...) And to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. (...)

... I have given such, and know

How tender ‚tis to love the babe that milks me –

I would while it was smiling in my face

Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums

And dashed the brains out, had I sworn

As you have done to this.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.41).

„Macbeth: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.43).

„Macbeth: If you shall cleave to my consent, when ‚tis

It shall make honour for you.

Banquo:     So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised, and allegiance clear,

I shall be counselled.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.51).

„Macbeth: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight’? O rare thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which I now draw.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.51).

„Macbeth: Whiles I threat, he lives

Words to the heat of deed too cold breath gives. (A bell rings)

I go and it is done.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.53).

„Macbeth: This is a sorry sight. (Looks on his hands)

L.Macbeth: A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.55).

„Macbeth: Methought I heard a voice cry ‚Sleep no more“

Macbeth does murder sleep’ – the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course

Chief nourishes in life’s feast.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.57).

„Macbeth: Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor

Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.57).

„Macbeth: What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? (...)

L.Macbeth: A little water clears us of this deed.

How easy is it then?“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.59).

„Ross: Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up,

Thine own life’s means.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.77).

„Macbeth: To be thus is nothing

But to be safely thus.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.87).

„L. Macbeth: Nought’s had, all’s spent,

Where our desire is got without content.

‚Tis safer tob e that which we destroy,

Than by destruction dwell in doubtfull joy.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.95).

„Macbeth: Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our peace have sent to peace,

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.

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.97).

„Macbeth: I am in blood

Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.“ (Shakespeare, 1994, p.115).