What does Macbeth reveal to Lady Macbeth in the quote below?
"There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd."
italOpened Act 3, Scene 4, Lines 131–132 italClosed
Category: Wizard of Oz
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Question #6
Malcolm tells Macduff:
"Be this the whetstone of your sword; let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it."
Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 228–229
What does "blunt" mean in this passage?
Act 5, page 3
Table of Contents
ACT 5, SCENE 4
Setting: Country near Burnam wood.
[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG SIWARD, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and Soldiers, marching]
| MALCOLM | Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand | |
| That chambers will be safe. | ||
| MENTEITH | We doubt it nothing. | |
| SIWARD | What wood is this before us? | |
| MENTEITH | The wood of Birnam. | |
| MALCOLM | Let every soldier hew him down a bough | |
| And bear't before him: thereby shall we shadow | ||
| The numbers of our host and make discovery | ||
| Err in report of us. | ||
| Soldiers | It shall be done. | |
| SIWARD | We learn no other but the confident tyrant | |
| Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure | ||
| Our setting down before 't. | ||
| MALCOLM | Tis his main hope: | 10 |
| For where there is advantage to be given, | ||
| Both more and less have given him the revolt, | ||
| And none serve with him but constrained things | ||
| Whose hearts are absent too. | ||
| MACDUFF | Let our just censures | |
| Attend the true event, and put we on | ||
| Industrious soldiership. | ||
| SIWARD | The time approaches | |
| That will with due decision make us know | ||
| What we shall say we have and what we owe. | ||
| Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate, | ||
| But certain issue strokes must arbitrate: | 20 | |
| Towards which advance the war. | ||
| [Exeunt, marching] |
Question #12
What does Macbeth mean in this quote?
"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."
Act 5, Scene 5, Lines 9–16
Question #6
What does Macbeth imagine that he sees which seems to lead him to Duncan's room?
Act 3, page 4
Table of Contents
ACT 3, SCENE 4
Setting: The same. A hall in the palace.
[A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants ]
| MACBETH | You know your own degrees; sit down: at first | |
| And last the hearty welcome. | ||
| Lords | Thanks to your majesty. | |
| MACBETH | Ourself will mingle with society, | |
| And play the humble host. | ||
| Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time | ||
| We will require her welcome. | ||
| LADY MACBETH | Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends; | |
| For my heart speaks they are welcome. | ||
| [First Murderer appears at the door] | ||
| MACBETH | See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks. | |
| Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst: | 10 | |
| Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure | ||
| The table round. | ||
| [Approaching the door] | ||
| There's blood on thy face. | ||
| First Murderer | Tis Banquo's then. | |
| MACBETH | Tis better thee without than he within. | |
| Is he dispatch'd? | ||
| First Murderer | My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him. | |
| MACBETH | Thou art the best o' the cut–throats: yet he's good | |
| That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it, | ||
| Thou art the nonpareil. | ||
| First Murderer | Most royal sir, | |
| Fleance is 'scaped. | 20 | |
| MACBETH | Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect, | |
| Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, | ||
| As broad and general as the casing air: | ||
| But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in | ||
| To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe? | ||
| First Murderer | Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, | |
| With twenty trenched gashes on his head; | ||
| The least a death to nature. | ||
| MACBETH | Thanks for that: | |
| There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled | ||
| Hath nature that in time will venom breed, | 30 | |
| No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to–morrow |
| MACBETH | Hang out our banners on the outward walls; | |
| The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength | ||
| Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie | ||
| Till famine and the ague eat them up: | ||
| Were they not forced with those that should be ours, | ||
| We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, | ||
| And beat them backward home. | ||
| [A cry of women within] | ||
| What is that noise? | ||
| SEYTON | It is the cry of women, my good lord. | |
| [Exit] | ||
| MACBETH | I have almost forgot the taste of fears; | |
| The time has been, my senses would have cool'd | 10 | |
| 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 supp'd full with horrors; | ||
| Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts | ||
| Cannot once start me. | ||
| [Re–enter SEYTON] | ||
| Wherefore was that cry? | ||
| SEYTON | The queen, my lord, is dead. | |
| MACBETH | She should have died hereafter; | |
| There would have been a time for such a word. | ||
| To–morrow, and to–morrow, and to–morrow, | ||
| Creeps in this petty pace from day to day | 20 | |
| To the last syllable of recorded time, | ||
| And all our yesterdays have lighted fools | ||
| The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! | ||
| 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. | ||
| [Enter a Messenger] | ||
| Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. | ||
| Messenger | Gracious my lord, | 30 |
| I should report that which I say I saw, | ||
| But know not how to do it. | ||
| MACBETH | Well, say, sir. | |
| Messenger | As I did stand my watch upon the hill, | |
| I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, | ||
| The wood began to move. | ||
| MACBETH | Liar and slave! | |
| Messenger | Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so: | |
| Within this three mile may you see it coming; | ||
| I say, a moving grove. | ||
| MACBETH | If thou speak'st false, | |
| Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, | ||
| Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, | 40 | |
| I care not if thou dost for me as much. | ||
| I pull in resolution, and begin | ||
| To doubt the equivocation of the fiend | ||
| That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood | ||
| Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood | ||
| Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out! | ||
| If this which he avouches does appear, | ||
| There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. | ||
| I gin to be aweary of the sun, | ||
| And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. | 50 | |
| Ring the alarum–bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! | ||
| At least we'll die with harness on our back. | ||
| [Exeunt] |
Question #13
What does Macbeth mean when he says:
"To–morrow, and to–morrow, and to–morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
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."
Act 5, Scene 5, Lines 19–28