Macbeth

10English:

Key Scenes and Focusing Questions

In this booklet you will find:

Key scenes from Shakespeares Macbeth, with space for you to make notes.

Notes on key characters, themes and relationships.

Activities to help deepen your understanding of the play.

Essay questions that you could use for this topic.

As we have already viewed Roman Polanskis film version of the play, and discussed the story at length, you will not be supplied with another copy of the plot. If you are missing this handout, please see me.

Our key scenes

Act 1, Scene 5: Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth's letter about what the weird sisters said, and works herself up to work him up to murder....When Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth tells him to look innocent and follow her lead.

Act 1, Scene 7: Macbeth almost talks himself out of killing the King....Lady Macbeth gives her husband a tongue-lashing that makes him commit to their plan to murder the King.

Act 2, Scene 1: Past midnight, Macbeth tells Banquo that they'll speak of the witches another time, and bids him goodnight....Macbeth sees "a dagger of the mind," hears his wife's bell, and goes to kill King Duncan.

Act 2, Scene 2: Lady Macbeth waits for Macbeth to come with the news that he has killed the King....Macbeth is so shaken by the murder that he brings the bloody daggers with him, and Lady Macbeth takes them from him, to place them with the sleeping grooms....A knocking at the castle gate frightens Macbeth, and his wife comes to lead him away, so that they can wash the blood from their hands.

Act 5, Scene 1: Lady Macbeth's waiting-gentlewoman tells a doctor of the Lady's sleep-walking....Lady Macbeth walks and talks in her sleep, revealing guilty secrets.

Act 5, Scene 5: Macbeth expresses his defiance of the forces marching against him, then hears a cry of women and receives the news of his wife's death....A messenger reports that Birnam woods is coming to Dunsinane; Macbeth goes out to meet his fate.

Act 1, Scene 5:

Inverness. Macbeth's castle.

Enter LADY MACBETH, reading a letter

LADY MACBETH

'They met me in the day of success: and I havelearned by the perfectest report, they have more inthem than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desireto question them further, they made themselves air,into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt inthe wonder of it, came missives from the king, whoall-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title,before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referredme to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king thatshalt be!' This have I thought good to deliverthee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thoumightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by beingignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay itto thy heart, and farewell.'Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt beWhat thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;It is too full o' the milk of human kindnessTo catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;Art not without ambition, but withoutThe illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;And that which rather thou dost fear to doThan wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither,That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;And chastise with the valour of my tongueAll that impedes thee from the golden round,Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seemTo have thee crown'd withal.

Enter a Messenger

What is your tidings?

Messenger

The king comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH

Thou'rt mad to say it:Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,Would have inform'd for preparation.

Messenger

So please you, it is true: our thane is coming:One of my fellows had the speed of him,Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely moreThan would make up his message.

LADY MACBETH

Give him tending;He brings great news.

Exit Messenger

The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-fullOf direst cruelty! make thick my blood;Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature's mischief! 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!'

Enter MACBETH

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!Thy letters have transported me beyondThis ignorant present, and I feel nowThe future in the instant.

MACBETH

My dearest love,Duncan comes here to-night.

LADY MACBETH

And when goes hence?

MACBETH

To-morrow, as he purposes.

LADY MACBETH

O, neverShall sun that morrow see!Your face, my thane, is as a book where menMay read strange matters. To beguile the time,Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,But be the serpent under't. He that's comingMust be provided for: and you shall putThis night's great business into my dispatch;Which shall to all our nights and days to comeGive solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETH

We will speak further.

LADY MACBETH

Only look up clear;To alter favour ever is to fear:Leave all the rest to me.

Exeunt

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Act 1, Scene 7

Macbeth's castle.

Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH

MACBETH

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere wellIt were done quickly: if the assassinationCould trammel up the consequence, and catchWith his surcease success; that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all here,But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,We'ld jump the life to come. But in these casesWe still have judgment here; that we but teachBloody instructions, which, being taught, returnTo plague the inventor: this even-handed justiceCommends the ingredients of our poison'd chaliceTo our own lips. He's here in double trust;First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,Who should against his murderer shut the door,Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this DuncanHath borne his faculties so meek, hath beenSo clear in his great office, that his virtuesWill plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, againstThe deep damnation of his taking-off;And pity, like a naked new-born babe,Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsedUpon the sightless couriers of the air,Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itselfAnd falls on the other.

Enter LADY MACBETH

How now! what news?

LADY MACBETH

He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?

MACBETH

Hath he ask'd for me?

LADY MACBETH

Know you not he has?

MACBETH

We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour'd me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.

LADY MACBETH

Was the hope drunkWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?

MACBETH

Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH

What beast was't, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:I