Literary Devices
1. Metaphor: “Meet we the medicine of sickly weal and with him pour we in our country’s
purge each drop of us.”-Caithness Scene 2 Line 32-34
2. Metaphor: “He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule.” –Caithness
Scene 2 Line 17-18
3. Imagery: “Hell is murky” –Lady Macbeth: Scene 1 Line 38 bed.”-Lady Macbeth
4. Rhetorical Question: “Here’s the smell of blood still. And all the perfumes of Arabia
will not sweeten this little hand”-Lady Macbeth
5. Rhetorical Question: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood
in him?” -Lady Macbeth Scene 1 Line 41-42
6. Synecdoche: “You see her eyes are open”- Doctor “Ay, but their sense are shut” –
Gentlewoman Scene 1 Line 26-27
7. Synecdoche: “Beard to beard” –Macbeth Scene 5 Line 7
8. Foreshadowing: “Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have
died holily in their beds”- Doctor Scene 1 Line 62-64
9. Isocolon: “Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles”- Doctor Scene 1 Line 75-76
10. Isocolon: “Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him do call it valiant fury.”
11. Hyperbole: “Their dear causes would to the bleeding and the grim alarm excite the
mortified man.” –Menteith Scene 2 Line 3-5
12. Hyperbole: “I’ll fight til from my bones my flesh be hacked.” –Macbeth Scene 3 Line 38
13. Apostrophe/Repetition: “To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come,
come, come. Give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.”
–Lady Macbeth Scene 1 Line 69-72
14. Simile: “Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a
dwarfish feet.” –Angus Scene 2 Line 23-25
15. Personification: “Our castle’s strength will laugh and siege to scorn” –Macbeth Scene 5
Line 3
16. Personification: "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his
hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more."
17. Convention: “Cousins I hope the days are near at hands” –Malcolm Scene 4 Line 1
18. Convention: “The time approaches.” –Siward Scene 4 Line 22
19. Conceit: Line 67: Come, sir, dispatch. - If thou couldst, doctor, cast the water of my land,
find her disease, and purge it to a sound and pristine heath, I would applaud thee to the
very echo that should applaud again. -Pull ‘t off, I say. -What rhubarb, senna, or what
purgative drug would scour these English hense? Hear’st thou of them? –Macbeth Scene
4 Line 62-69
20. Conceit: "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,
Signifyinh nothing.” –Macbeth Scene 5 Line 29-31
21. Periodic Sentence: "It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying
nothing." –Macbeth Scene 5 Line 29-31
22. Figurative Language: Macbeth: “I have almost forgot the taste of fears.” –Macbeth
Scene 5 Line 12
23. Polysyndeton: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from
day to day.” –Macbeth Scene 5 Line 22
24. Polysyndeton: “Then yield thee, coward, and live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time.” Macduff Scene 8 Line 27
25. Asyndeton: "I say I saw" Messenger Scene 5 Line 34
26. Figurative Language: “My voice is in my sword.” -Macduff Scene 8 Line 9
27. Rhyming Couplets: “That calls upon us, by the grace of grace, We will perform in
measure time and place.” Malcolm Scene 8 Line 85-86
28. Rhyming Couplets: “So thanks to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us
crowned at Scone.” Malcolm Scene 8 Line 87-88
29. Irony: “Tell the Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” -Macduff
Scene 8 Line-20