Macbeth Act I: Quotes to Learn
Act 1
All (witches): Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Captain: For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name -
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage,
Till he faced the slave;
Duncan: O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
Duncan: No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
Macbeth: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
First witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Second witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Third witch: All hail, Macbeth! That shall be king hereafter.
Duncan: There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust
Macbeth: … why do you dress me
In borrowed robes?
Macbeth: The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself.
Duncan: My worthy Cawdor!
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.
Duncan: It is a peerless kinsman.
Lady Macbeth: … This have I thought good to
Deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness,
Lady Macbeth: … Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human-kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly,
That thou wouldst holily, wouldst not play false,
Lady Macbeth: … Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty!
… Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
… Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Lady Macbeth: … look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.
Macbeth: … if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence,
… We’d jump the life to come.
Macbeth: I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself
And falls on the other -
Macbeth: We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Macbeth: I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
Lady Macbeth: I have given suck, and know
How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me -
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Duncan: O worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee.
Ross: And, for an earnest greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane!
For it is thine.
Duncan: Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
Not unaccompanied invest him only,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers.
Captain: Doubtful it stood,
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald -
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him.
Macbeth: Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off;
Captain: No sooner Justice had, with valour armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan Lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
All (witches): Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Captain: For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name -
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like Valour’s minion, carved out his passage,
Till he faced the slave;
Duncan: O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!
Duncan: No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
Macbeth: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
First witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Second witch: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Third witch: All hail, Macbeth! That shall be king hereafter.
Duncan: There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust
Macbeth: … why do you dress me
In borrowed robes?
Macbeth: The service and the loyalty I owe,
In doing it, pays itself.
Duncan: My worthy Cawdor!
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.
Duncan: It is a peerless kinsman.
Lady Macbeth: … This have I thought good to
Deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness,
Lady Macbeth: … Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human-kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly,
That thou wouldst holily, wouldst not play false,
Lady Macbeth: … Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty!
… Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
… Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Lady Macbeth: … look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.
Macbeth: … if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence,
… We’d jump the life to come.
Macbeth: I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself
And falls on the other -
Macbeth: We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honoured me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
Macbeth: I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
Lady Macbeth: I have given suck, and know
How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me -
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Duncan: O worthiest cousin!
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee.
Ross: And, for an earnest greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:
In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane!
For it is thine.
Duncan: Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
And you whose places are the nearest, know
We will establish our estate upon
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland; which honour must
Not unaccompanied invest him only,
But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
On all deservers.
Captain: Doubtful it stood,
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald -
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him.
Macbeth: Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off;
Captain: No sooner Justice had, with valour armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan Lord, surveying vantage,
With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
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