YEAR 10, 2017MACBETH Exam Revision
For each passage:
- Read the passage carefully again and note any ideas next to it. Are there any words that you do not understand? Or that are used in an unusual way? Do you feel you understand what the passage is about?
- Which line is the most important? Why?
- Consider form (what is this passage), rhyme, rhythm and metre. Are there any oddities in metre?
- Highlight the images and symbols. What are they? What colours are used or alluded to?
- What sound devices are used? Alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, fricatives, plosives, sibilance, repetition, anaphora, caesura?
- What happened directly before this passage? What happens directly after it?
- What does this passage reveal about the character or characters?
- Separate the passage into section and compose a sentence on each.
- Make a claim about this passage – how important is it to the play? Which ideas or themes does this passage express or develop? Are characters developed by this passage, if so, how? Compose a paragraph developing this claim, referring to all the details you have gathered in questions 1-8 and using direct quotations from the passage to support your statements.
The exam has the following guiding questions
What is the context of the passage? (What happens before or after?)
Examine the reactions of the characters in the passage.
What key concerns of the play are highlighted in this passage?
Comment on Shakespeare’s use of language.
Two of the following four will be on the exam.
PASSAGE 1
Act 3 Scene 1, lines 49 - 73
MACBETH: To be thus is nothing,
But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo 50
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be feared. 'Tis much he dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he, 55
Whose being I do fear, and under him
My genius is rebuked, as it is said
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
When first they put the name of king upon me
And bade them speak to him. Then prophet-like, 60
They hailed him father to a line of kings.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
And put a barren scepter in my gripe,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If ’t be so, 65
For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common enemy of man, 70
To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come fate into the list,
And champion me to th' utterance. Who’s there?
PASSAGE 2
Act 4 Scene 3, lines 77 – 139
MALCOLM: With this there grows
In my most ill-compose affection such
A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
Desire his jewels, and this other’s house,80
And my more-having would be as sauce
To make me hunger more that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
Destroying them for their wealth.
MACDUFF:This avarice
Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root85
Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings; yet do not fear,
Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will
Of your mere own. All these are portable,
With other graces weighed.90
MALCOLM: But I have noen. The king-becoming graces –
As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude –
I have no relish of them, but abound95
In the division of each several crime,
Acting in many ways. Nay, had I power, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.
MACDUFF:O Scotland, Scotland!100
MALCOLM: If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
I am as I have spoken.
MACDUFF:Fit to govern?
No, not to live. O nation miserable!
With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred,
When shalt thou see they wholesome days again,105
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accursed
And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet,110
Died every day she lived. Fare thee well,
These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself
Hath banished me from Scotland. O my breast,
Thy hope ends here.
MALCOLM: Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul115
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste; but God above120
Deal between thee and me, for even now
I put myself to thy direction and
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet125
Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
At no time broke my faith, would not betray
The devil to his fellow, and delight
No less in truth than life. My first false speaking130
Was this upon myself. What I am truly
Is thine, and my poor country’s, to command:
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men
Already at a point was setting forth.135
Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?
MACDUFF: Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,
‘Tis hard to reconcile.
PASSAGE 3
Act 5 Scene 1, lines 14 - 70
GENTLEWOMAN: Neither to you, nor anyone, having no witness to confirm my speech.15
[Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper]
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise and, upon my
Life, fast asleep. Observe her, stand close.
DOCTOR:How came she by that light?
GENTLEWOMAN: Why, it stood by her: she has a light by her continually,
‘tis her command.20
DOCTOR: You see her eyes are open.
GENTLEWOMAN: Ay, but their sense are shut.
DOCTOR: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
GENTLEWOMAN: It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter25
of an hour.
LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot.
DOCTOR: Hark, she speaks; I will set down what comes from her to
Satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! Out I say! One, two. Why30
then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier,
and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can
call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old
man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR: Do you mark that?35
LADY MACBETH: The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she
now? What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’that,
my lord, no more o’that. You mar all with this starting.
DOCTOR: Go to, go to; you have know what you should not.
GENTLEWOMAN: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of40
that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH: Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O.
DOCTOR: What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
GENTLEWOMAN: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for 45
the dignity of the whole body.
DOCTOR: Well, well, well –
GENTLEWOMAN: Pray God it be, sir.
DOCTOR: This disease is beyond my practice; yet I have known
those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in50
their beds.
LADY MACBETH: Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look
not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot
come out on’s grave.
DOCTOR: Even so?55
LADY MACBETH: 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.
DOCTOR: Will she go now to bed?
GENTLEMAN: Directly.60
DOCTOR: Foul whisp’rings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillow will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;65
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night;
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
GENTLEWOMAN: Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
PASSAGE 4
Act 5, Scene 5 lines 1-51
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, 5
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’d10
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?15
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
To the last syllable of recorded time,20
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 tale25
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,
I should report that which I say I saw,30
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:35
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,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.40
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 to Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!45
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is not flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!50
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.