Macbeth: key quotation sheet (PDF)
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From the Macbeth study guide.
How to use this sheet
These are the 10 quotations from the Macbeth study guide, set out for revision. Part one gives each quotation with a plain-English reading and space for your own notes. Part two prints them again with a word missing from each line, so that you can test yourself.
- Read the quotation aloud twice. Sound helps memory more than staring does.
- In the note space, name one method (a device, a word choice, a feature of the verse) and the effect it has.
- Add one link: to a theme, to another moment in the text, or to a point of context.
- A day later, cover part one and complete part two from memory.
Part one: the quotations
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Witches · Act 1, Scene 1
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Plain English: Good is bad and bad is good; let us fly off through the murk.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Stars, hide your fires;
Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 4
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
Plain English: Let the stars go dark so that no light can reveal what I secretly want.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Come, you spirits
Lady Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 5
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
Plain English: Come, spirits that serve murderous thoughts, and strip away my womanhood.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Look like th’ innocent flower,
Lady Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 5
But be the serpent under ’t.
Plain English: Appear harmless, but be the snake hidden beneath.
Method and effect:
Links to:
I have no spur
Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 7
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
Plain English: Nothing drives me on except ambition, which jumps too high and comes crashing down.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
Macbeth · Act 2, Scene 1
The handle toward my hand?
Plain English: Is that a dagger in front of me, its handle turned for me to grasp?
Method and effect:
Links to:
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Macbeth · Act 2, Scene 2
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Plain English: Could the whole ocean wash my hand clean? No: my hand would turn the seas red.
Method and effect:
Links to:
I am in blood
Macbeth · Act 3, Scene 4
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
Plain English: I have waded so deep into blood that going back would be as wearisome as going on.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Out, damned spot, out, I say! ... Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Lady Macbeth · Act 5, Scene 1
Plain English: Away, cursed stain. Who would have guessed the old man had so much blood in him?
Method and effect:
Links to:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
Macbeth · Act 5, Scene 5
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
Plain English: Life is only a moving shadow, a bad actor who swaggers and worries through his hour on stage and is then forgotten.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Part two: test yourself
Fill each gap from memory, then check against part one. Mark the ones you missed and come back to them tomorrow.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Witches · Act 1, Scene 1
Hover the fog and filthy air.
, hide your fires;
Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 4
Let not light see my black and deep .
Come, you
Lady Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 5
That tend on mortal , unsex me here,
Look like th’ flower,
Lady Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 5
But be the under ’t.
I have no spur
Macbeth · Act 1, Scene 7
To prick the sides of my , but only
Vaulting ambition, which itself
Is this a which I see before me,
Macbeth · Act 2, Scene 1
The toward my hand?
Will all great ocean wash this blood
Macbeth · Act 2, Scene 2
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will
The seas incarnadine,
the green one red.
I am in
Macbeth · Act 3, Scene 4
in so far that, should I wade no more,
were as tedious as go o’er.
Out, damned spot, out, I say! ... Yet who would have the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Lady Macbeth · Act 5, Scene 1
Life’s but a shadow, a poor player
Macbeth · Act 5, Scene 5
That and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is no more.
Next steps
Turn three of these quotations into full paragraphs with the essay planner, and check your method against the close reading toolkit. For a small daily dose of the language, Daily Bard shows one passage each morning with a plain-English reading on the back of the leaf.
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