Macbeth
Act Two
Personification and Apostrophe
Identify whether the following quotations are an example of personification or
apostrophe.
Explain how the quotation proves your determination.
1. Ross describing the Norwegian banners flying from the battlements of
the castle at Fife. (Act 1, Scene 2)
From Fife, great King,
Where Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
2. Angus relating the downfall of the former Thane of Cawdor. (Scene 3)
But treasons capital, confessed and proved,
Have overthrown him.
3. Lady Macbeth learning that Duncan comes to Inverness. (Scene 5)
...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!
4. Banquo describing Inverness castle to Duncan. (Act 1, Scene 6)
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here.
5. Lady Macbeth to her husband. (Act 1, Scene 7)
Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now to look, so green and pale,
At what it did so freely?
6. Banquo contemplating the witches’ prophecies. (Scene 1)
…Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to repose
7. Macbeth on his way to murder Duncan. (Scene 1)
I go and it is done. The bell invites me.
Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.
8. Macbeth going to bed after the murder but hearing the knocking at the
gate. (Scene 2)
Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst.
9. Macduff informing others of the murder. (Scene 3)
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
10. Ross describing the solar eclipse. (Scene 4)
Ha, good father,
Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threatens his blood stage: by the clock ‘tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.