Macbeth

By William Shakespeare QUOTATION: Macbeth. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth and Doctor, in Macbeth, act 5, sc. 3, l. 40-6.

“Raze out” means erase; “oblivious” means producing forgetfulness; the “stuff” that weighs on the heart includes guilt for murder.

QUOTATION: Macbeth.If we should fail?
Lady Macbeth. We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we’ll not fail.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 1, sc. 7, l. 59-61.

The image may relate to screwing the pegs of a musical instrument to the point where the strings are taut.

QUOTATION: Macbeth. What is the night?
Lady Macbeth. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 3, sc. 4, l. 125-6.

QUOTATION: Macbeth. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
What is’t you do?
Witches. A deed without a name.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth and Witches, in Macbeth, act 4, sc. 1, l. 48-9.

QUOTATION: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 1, sc. 3, l. 38.

QUOTATION: Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 3, sc. 4, l. 37-8.

QUOTATION: I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 5, sc. 5, l. 9-15.

“My fell” means my skin covered in hair, or all my hair; “dismal treatise” means horror story.

QUOTATION: Though castles topple on their warder’s heads,
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature’s germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken—answer me
To what I ask you.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 4, sc. 1, l. 58-63.

A warder is a guardian; “nature’s germens” means the seeds or rudiments from which it was thought all living organisms developed.

QUOTATION: Still it cried, “Sleep no more!” to all the house:
“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!”
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 2, sc. 2, l. 38-40.

Imagining he hears a voice; Macbeth by now is Thane (Lord) of Glamis and Cawdor.

QUOTATION: It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 3, sc. 4, l. 121.

proverbial, and echoing Genesis 9.6, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

QUOTATION: Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 2, sc. 1, l. 36-9.

The vision is “fatal” as prompting him to murder; “heat-oppressed means fevered.

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