Friday 27 January 2012

Excerpts: Macbeth

Macbeth: The Thane of Cawdor lives:why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

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Banquo: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with him honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.

Though the meaning of the second half is clear,it doesn't seem well framed or
something's wrong with my book!

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Banquo: New honours come upon him
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
But with the aid of use.

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Malcolm: Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it

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Macbeth: The Prince of Cumberland!That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,
For in my way it lies, 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.

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Lady Macbeth: Art not without ambition, but without the illness(that) should attend it.

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Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.

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Lady Macbeth: Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold,hold!".

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Macbeth: If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.

This is quoted by Jeeves in one of the Jeeves books :D

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Lady Macbeth: Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valour as
thou art in desire?

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Macbeth: Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

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Macbeth: 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 nourisher in life's feast

Shakespeare describes sleep like this in another play too.He seems to have thought about it a lot :)

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Lady Macbeth : My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white.

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Macbeth: To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

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Malcolm: To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.

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Macbeth: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.

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Lady Macbeth: Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content;
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Best lines in the play!

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Macbeth : After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.

Quoted in Jane Eyre, Jane says this about Aunt Reed I think.

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Hecate: And, which is worse, all you have done,
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful, who(as others do)
Loves for his own ends, not for you.

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Hecate: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know security is mortal's chiefest enemy.

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The Three Witches: For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Scores for imagination and amazing choice of words!

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Apparition: Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

Clearly one of the most important lines of the story!

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Lady Macduff: When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.

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Macduff's son: Then the liars and swearers are fools; for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

A valid point..it never occurred to me! :D

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Lady Macduff: I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly.

Well said!

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Malcolm: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, yet grace must still look so.

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Lady Macbeth: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

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Macbeth: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

So true!Our thoughts, actions everything will vanish beyond proof and for all anyone knows, we may just not have existed at all!

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Ross: Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.


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NOTES: I am new to Shakespeare and have read only a few plays and I like this one best. An extremely clever plot: it is thrilling as one by one, the witches' promises come undone. There is no way Macbeth could've expected their assertions to go wrong; yet, there were tiny loopholes that proved more dangerous than any open threat. Shakespeare has little tidbits of wisdom scattered throughout the play, just as he does in almost every other play I've read. The best thing is they always tell you something new, something you hadn't thought of before. His imagination is amazing!The three witches upon the heath and Hecate, the things they do and say and some of the descriptions given by other characters("though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations") show he had good capacity for fantasy! Lord and Lady Macbeth are real characters: people who were good in normal circumstances but equally capable of cruelty when faced with desire and temptation. Finally, the best thing about Shakespeare:beautiful language with lots of poetry and metaphors. He is undoubtedly a genius.It was difficult to filter out good excerpts because there were just too many!



2 comments:

  1. I am just very glad you have started blogging. and glad to be your FIRST COMMENTER. YAY!

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  2. yay!glad you're the first commenter! :)

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