Plant Motifs
“But that myself should be the root and father”
Act 3, Scene 1, Line 5, Banquo
“What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,”
Act 5, Scene 4, Line 55, Macbeth
“Or so much as it needs to dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds” (line 30)
Act 5, Scene 2, Line 30, Lennox
“where the place,upon the heath”
Act 1 Scene 1 Line 5 Weird Sisters
Act 1, scene 4, line 28
“I have begun to plant thee, and will labor to make thee full of growing.”
Line 33
Disease
Act 2
Scene 1, line 39
Macbeth- “Heat-oppressed mind”
Scene 4, line 53 and line 87
Ross- “Gentlemen, rise, his Highness is not well…”
Macbeth- “I have a strange infirmity; which is nothing…”
Act 3
Scene 1, line 107-8
Macbeth- “Who wear our health but sickly in his life/ Which in his death were perfect”
Scene 2, 11-12
Lady Macbeth- “Things without all remedy/ Should be without regard”
Scene 2, 16-18
Macbeth- “…sleep/ in the affliction of these terrible dreams”
Act 4
Scene 1
138 “infected be the air whereon they ride”
Scene 2
3 “His flight was madness”
Act 5
Scene 3, 39-40, Macbeth
“Cure her of that. Canst though not minister to a mind diseased,”
Scene 3, 51, Macbeth
“The water of my land, find her disease,”
Darkness
“Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell”
Act 1, Scene 5 – 49/50
“Blanket of the dark”
Act 1, Scene 5 – 52
“Their candles are all out”
Act 2, Scene 1—line 5
Banquo: “I must become a borrower of the night for a dark hour or twain”
Act 3, Scene 1 -26
Malcolm: “The night is long that never finds the day”
Act 4, Scene 3- 240
“That will be ere the set of sun”
Act1 Scene 1—line 5
“Till you return at night.”
Act 3, Scene 1, Macbeth
Macbeth: “How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!”
Act 4, Scene 1—Line 48
Doctor: “ I have two nights watched with you.”
Act 5, Scene 1 --- Line 1
“The night has been unruly. Where we lay,/ Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,
/Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death, /And prophesying with accents terrible
/Of dire combustion and confused events /New hatched to th’ woeful time: the obscure bird
/Clamored the livelong night. Some say, the earth /Was feverous and did shake.”
Act 2, Scene 3—Lines 50-57
“The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betrays in deepest
consequence.”
Act 1, scene 3, line
DOUBLE ANYTHING
Act 1
“look like th’ innocent flower, but be the serpent under ‘t.”
Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 63-64
“Only look up clear”
Act 1, Scene 5, Line 70
“in every point twice done”
Act 1, Scene 6, Line 15
“He’s here in double trust”
Act 1, Scene 7, Line 12
“Nor time nor place did then adhere, and yet you would make both.”
Act 1, Scene 7, Line 51
“two lodged together” [kind of]
Act 1, Scene 1, Line 26
“Two truths are told, as happy prologues to the swelling act of imperial theme.”
Act 1, scene 3, line 128
“As cannons overcharged with double cracks”
Act 1 Scene 2 line 37
Act 4
“Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble.”
Act 4, Scene 1, Lines 20-21 & 35-36, Witches
“Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee? But yet I’ll make assurance double sure and take a bond
of fate.”
Act 4, Scene 1, Lines 82-84, Macbeth
Act 5
“Unnatural deeds do bring unnatural troubles.”
Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 67-68, Doctor
Scene 8
20 “double sense”---------------------------------------------------------------
Motif – Blood (Macbeth)
Act 1:
Scene 7, line 9: “bloody instructions, which being taught, return to plague the inventor”
Scene 7, Line 75: “when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber”
Scene 5, Line 51: “that my keen knife see not the wound it makes”
Scene 5, Lines 40-43: “that tend on mortal thoughts… make thick my blood.”
Scene 2, Line 1“What bloody man is that?”
Scene2, Lines 18-20 “Which smoked with bloody execution,like valor’s minion carved out his
passage till he faced the slave”
Act 2:
Scene 1, line 46: “gouts of blood”
Scene 1, line 48: “bloody business”
Scene 2, line 46-49: “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.”
Line 55-57: “If he do bleed, /I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, / For it must seem their
guilt.”
Line 59-63: “They pluck out mine eyes! /Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood /
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather /The multitudinous seas incarnadine, /Making
the green one red.”
Scene 3, line 63-65: “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. / Most sacrilegious murder hath
broke ope / The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence / The life o’ th’ building.”
Scene 3, Line 70, Macbeth “Murder and treason”
Scene 3, Line 90, Lennox “Their hands and faces were all badged with blood.”
Scene 3, Line 108, Macbeth “His silver skin laced with his golden blood, and his gashed stabs”
Scene 3, Line 111-112, Macbeth “Steeped with the color of their trade, their daggers unmannerly
breeched with gore”
Scene 3, Line 136-137, Donalbain “the nearer in blood, the nearer bloody”
Scene 3, line 91, Macbeth “The wine of life is drawn.”
Scene 4, Line 5, Ross “Threatens his bloody stage”
Scene 4, Line 52, Macbeth “Never shake Thy gory locks at me.”
Scene 4, Line 76, Macbeth “Blood hath been shed ere now….”
Scene 4, Line 95, Macbeth “Thy blood is cold….”
Scene 4, Line 123, Macbeth “It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.”
Scene 4, Lines 137-139, Macbeth “I am in blood/stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/
returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
Act 3:
Scene 1, line 105; Macbeth- “whose execution takes your enemy off”
Scene 1, line 116, Macbeth- “so he is mine and in such a bloody distance”
Scene 5 Pg. 352, line 4-5: “To trade and traffic Macbeth, In riddles and affair of death”
Act 4:
Scene 3, Line204-205, Ross: “Your castleis surprised: your wife and babes savagely
slaughtered”
P. 357 Scene 1, Lines 37-38: Second Witch: “cool it with a baboon’s blood, then the charm is
firm and good.”
Scene 1, Line 64; First Witch: “pour in the sow’s blood , that hath eaten her nine farrow; grease
that’s sweaten from the murder’s gibbet throw into the flame.”
P. 359 Scene 1, Line 79; Second Apparition: “be bloody, bold, and resolute! Laugh to scorn the
pow’r of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
Act 5:
Scene 1 pg 374-375, line 33: Lady Macbeth: “Out damned spot!”
Scene 1 pg 374-375, line 37-38: Lady Macbeth: “Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?”
Scene 1 pg 377, line 47: Lady Macbeth: “Here’s the smell of blood still.”
Scene 2 pg 378, line 3-5: Menteith: “for their dear causes would to the bleeding and the grim
alarm excited the mortified man.”
Scene 2 pg 378, line 17: Angus: “Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands.”
Scene 2 pg 378, line 28-29: Caithness: “And with him pour we, in our countries purge, each drop
of us.”
Scene 6Pg. 383, line 9-10: “Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath; those clamorous
harbringers of blood and death.”
Scene 8, Line 55. Macduff: “behold, where Th’ursupr’s cursed head”
Scene 8, Line 69-71 Malcolm: “Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen, Who, as’tis
thought, by self and violent hands Took her life”
Unnatural
“They made themselves air, into which they vanished”
Act 1, Scene 5, line 5
“A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at night and killed”
Act 1 Scene 3 lines 1-2 Wicked Sisters
Act 2, Scene 1, Line 2
“The moon is down; I have not heard the clock”
Line 35
“I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.”
Line 56
“Moves like a ghost”
Act 2,Scene 4,Line 12-13, Oldman
“Turned wild with their nature, broke their stalls, and flung out”
Act 2, Scene 4, Line 16, Oldman
“As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites”
Act 2, Scene 3, Line 75, Macbeth
“’Tis said they eat each other.”
Act 2, Scene 4, Line 18, Old Man
“’Gainst nature still.”
Act 2, Scene 4, Line 28, Ross
“The sacred storehouse of his predecessors and guardian of their bones.”
Act 2, Scene 4, Line 34-34, Macduff
“As the weird women promised,”
Act 2, Scene 4, Lines 80-81, Macbeth
“The times have been that, when the brains were out, the man would die, and there an end;
but now they rise again….”
Act 2, Scene 4, Line 24, Macbeth
“Stones have been known to move and trees to speak….”
Act 3, Scene 1, Line 2, Banquo
“May the not be my oracles as well,”
Act 3, Scene 1, Line 9, Banquo
“ would create soldiers, make our women fight”
Act 4,
Scene 1 pgs 360-361
76 “Be bloody, bold and resolute! Laugh to scor
n the pow’r of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.” (Second Apparition)
105 “eternal curse fall on you”
106 “why sinks that cauldron”
112 “the spirit of Banquo”
“this supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good.”
Scene 3, Line 186. Ross
“Where hast thou been sister? Killing swine”
Act 5 Scene 1
Lines 55,56,57 pg 377.
Doctor: “Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their
beds”
Scene 8 pg.385 line25
“our rarer monsters are”