Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare Project 2020

Witches, ghosts, murder and madness...I loved it! This was my first time reading Macbeth and I will definitely return to it again!

Full of famous quotes:

IV.1 All[witches]: "Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

V.1 Lady Macbeth: "Out, damned spot! out, I say!"

And famous phrases coined by the Bard:

I.5 Lady Macbeth:..."Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness..."

IV.1 Second Witch: "By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes."

Though it is the complex character of Macbeth that keeps one riveted. He is manipulated by his wife and the 3 witches and he struggles with his thoughts and actions:

1.3 Macbeth: "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings."

I.7. Macbeth: "False face must hide what the false heart doth know."

V.3 Macbeth: "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?"

And he laments on life and death:

V.5 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."

Lady Macbeth is actually more of a villain than Macbeth:

II.2 Lady Macbeth: "Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead

Are but as pictures...;

III.2 Lady Macbeth: "...'Tis safer to be that which we destroy,

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy."

One of my favorite parts was the Porter being awakened after a night of drinking to open the gate:

III.3 MacDuff: "What three things does drink especially provoke?"

Porter: "...nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery,

...it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire,

but it takes away the performance...

it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off;

it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to,

and not stand to..."