Leitmotif in Macbeth

Leitmotif in Macbeth: Excerpts

False Appearances

1) Act I Scene iii -  BANQUO

How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these

So wither'd and so wild in their attire,

That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,

And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me,

By each at once her chappy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

2) Act I scene iv - LADY MACBETH

O, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May 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 coming

Must be provided for: and you shall put

This night's great business into my dispatch;

Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

 Act 2 scene 1

“Is this a dagger…too cold breath gone.”

3) Act II scene ii - MACBETH

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Exit Servant

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

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?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;

And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There's no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes.

4) Act III scene iV

MACBETH

Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appal the devil.

LADY MACBETH

O proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,

Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,

Impostors to true fear, would well become

A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all's done,

You look but on a stool.

MACBETH

Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo!

how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

If charnel-houses and our graves must send

Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.

Act 5 Scene 1

“It is an accustomed action… you mar all with this starting”

Darkness

Act 4 Scene 1
"Double, Double Toil & Trouble; Fire Burn, & Cauldron Bubble"

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes"

"Show his eyes, & grieve his heart; come like shadows so depart!"

Act 2 Scene 3

"I go, & it is done; the bell invites me."

Act 4 Scene 3
"Your wife & babes savengly slaughtered"

Act 2 Scene 3
"Knock, Knock; Never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell."

Act 1 Scene 1
"When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightening, or in rain?"

Act 4 Scene 1
"How now, you secret, black & midnight hags! What is't you do?"

"Eye of newt & Toe of Frog, Wool of Bat & Tongue of Dog."

"Harpier cries, 't is time, 't is time."

Blood

 (Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 1-3)

Duncan: 

What bloody man is that? He can report,

As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

(Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 39-46)

Sergeant:

As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.

If I say sooth, I must report they were

As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:

Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,

Or memorise another Golgotha,

I cannot tell.

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

(Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 45-48)

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! make thick my blood;

(Act 1, Scene 7, Lines 8-12)

Macbeth:

We still have judgment here; that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips.

(Act 1, Scene 7, Lines 80-87)

Macbeth:

Bring forth men-children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males. Will it not be received,

When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two

Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,

That they have done't?

(Act 2, Scene 1, Lines 52-59)

Macbeth:

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There's no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleep

(Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 55-59)

Lady Macbeth:

Go get some water,

And wash this filthy witness from your hand.

Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

They must lie there: go carry them; and smear

The sleepy grooms with blood.

(Act 4, Scene 1, Lines 111-114)

Macbeth:

Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

pour in sow's blood

(Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 37-40)

Macduff:

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou

thy wrongs

(Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 48-50)

Malcolm:

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;

It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash

Is added to her wounds

(Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 118-123)

Macduff:

O nation miserable,

With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,

When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,

Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction stands accursed,

And does blaspheme his breed?

Sleep

Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid. (Act 1 Sc 3 L19&20)

Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely? (Act 1 Sc 7 L37-39)

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep. (Act 2 Sc 1 L6)

There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried. “Murder!” That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them. But they did say their prayers, and addressed them Again to sleep (Act 2 Sc 2 L22-27)

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.” (Act 2 Sc 2 L42-46)

You lack the season of all natures, sleep. (Act 3 Sc 4 L173)

A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the line>effects of watching. (Act 5 Sc 1 L 10-12)

Lo you, here she comes. This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her, stand close (Act 5 Sc 1 L23-25)

Lady Macbeth- Act 3, Scene 4: “You lack the season of all natures sleep.”

Macbeth- Act 5, Scene 1 (line 22): “Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.”

Doctor- Act 5 (line 10): “A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep…”

Lady Macbeth- Act 1, Scene 7 (line 39): “Was the hope drunk wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?”

Macbeth- Act 2, Scene 2: “There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried ‘murder!”

Macbeth- Act 2, scene 2: “Methough I heard a voice cry’sleep no more!”

Lady Macbeth: Act 2, scene 2: “Give me the daggers the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures…”

Macbeth- Act 1, scene 3: “…sleep shall neither night nor day hang upon his pent-house lid…”

Banquo- Act 2, scene 1 (line 6): “…a heavy summon lies upon me and yet I would not sleep.”

Macbeth- Act 3, scene 4: “come, we’ll to sleep.”