Macbeth Irony Quotes

We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it;
She’ll close and be herself, while our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 2. The snake is a metaphor for the danger the Macbeths find themselves in after Duncan’s murder. Macbeth doesn’t feel safe on the throne and sees Banquo as a threat to his position as long as he is alive. This passage is ironic, since it was Macbeth who created the snake in the first place with his uncontrollable desire for power that pushed him to regicide.

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. After learning that Banquo has been killed on his orders, Macbeth appears to compose himself in front his guests at his post-coronation banquet. He toasts them as if nothing has happened, showing how deceptive and two-faced he is. There is an example of dramatic irony, since the audience knows what Macbeth’s guests do not. Lurking beneath his verneer of conviviality and hospitality is a man who plotted the murders of Banquo and his son.

Here had we now our country’s honour roof’d,
Were the graced person of our Banquo present;
Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
Than pity for mischance!

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. Shakespeare adds dramatic irony and an unexpected twist to the story at this point. A deceptive Macbeth expresses disappointment that Banquo is not present for his coronation banquet, suggesting that this is due to Banquo’s “unkindness” and not any “mischance.” The audience knows that Banquo is absent because Macbeth had him murdered. Macbeth has not yet noticed that moments before this Banquo’s ghost entered to sit in Macbeth’s place.

I drink to the general joy o’ the whole table,
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;
Would he were here!

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. After Banquo’s ghost departs, Macbeth proposes a toast not only to his banquet guests but also the absent Banquo. He tells the gathering of nobles how he misses Banquo. Macbeth reaches new heights of hypocrisy here, as the audience knows that he had Banquo brutally murdered. The passage is a good example of dramatic irony and shows Macbeth’s capacity for deception.

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. At the end of this scene in which Macbeth hallucinates the ghost of Banquo at his banquet, Lady Macbeth attributes his behavior to lack of sleep. There is a double irony in her words. The audience knows that Macbeth will never sleep properly again since killing King Duncan. Also later in the play it is Lady Macbeth who has sleep problems, she sleepwalks and talks in her sleep and needs a light near her because of fear of the dark.

Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4. In speaking these lines to Lady Macbeth, Macbeth shows how comfortable he has become with committing murder. He has already killed King Duncan and has had his friend Banquo killed. He implies and foreshadows that he will commit more murders to serve his ambition, when he tells his wife that they are “yet but young in deed.” The man who said he would never sleep again after killing Duncan, now seems untroubled by guilt and more emboldened after the murder of Banquo. He suggests to Lady Macbeth that they go to sleep and dismisses his earlier hallucination of Banquo’s ghost as inexperience. It is clear that Macbeth’s tolerence levels for evil and violence have risen. He has matured from being the reluctant murderer of Duncan, who needed to be motivated by his wife, to a fully-fledged monster. There is a certain irony in Macbeth’s description of himself as “young in deed.” He is certainly not inexperiences in crime, having already killed Duncan, his grooms, and Banquo.

Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
And the right-valiant Banquo walk’d too late;
Whom, you may say, if ‘t please you, Fleance kill’d,
For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight
In pious rage the two delinquents tear,
That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done?

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 6. Lennox’s speech is dripping with sarcasm and irony, as he expresses the growing hostility among the nobility towards Macbeth. He draws comparisons between Fleance fleeing after his father’s death and King Duncan’s sons fleeing after their father’s murder. He says that men must not be out walking too late. He sarcastically speaks of the loyalty Macbeth showed by killing two guards who were drunk and asleep, and how Macbeth was sorry for Duncan only after he was dead.

Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1. The second apparition summoned by the Witches is that of a bloody child, urging him to be violent (“bloody”), courageous and determined. The apparition prophesies that no man born naturally of woman will be able to hurt Macbeth. This provides him with a false sense of security regarding any threat from Macduff. However, we later learn that Macduff was born through a C-section – “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” So this passage turns out to be ironic, since Macduff is fated to be Macbeth’s eventual nemesis. The passage shows the deceptiveness of the Witches. Macbeth’s death is foreshadowed here.

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1. The Witches continue their deceitful nature with their third apparition, a child crowned, with a tree in his hand. The child’s prophecy may at first appear to suggest that Macbeth is invincible. And this is exactly what he believes. In response he says: “That will never be Who can impress the forest, bid the tree Unfix his earth-bound root.” But the apparition’s words turn out to be ironic and foreshadowing, because it is Macbeth’s fate to be defeated just as the prophecy describes.

The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? –
What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1. A hallucinating Lady Macbeth sees the blood of the murders committed by her husband on her hands. The Thane of Fife’s wife is Lady Macduff, whom Macbeth had murdered along with her children. As Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, she frantically goes through the motion of washing her hands and wonders if they will ever be clean. This is ironic, given that after goading Macbeth to murder Duncan, she was telling her husband the very opposite in her bid to control him: “A little water clears us of this deed.” Now the once ruthless and power-hungry manipulator is so overwhelmed by guilt that her carefully-constructed mask has slipped, her control has broken down and her mental state has deteriorated into madness.

If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3. After the Doctor says he cannot heal the mentally troubled Lady Macbeth, Macbeth makes this sarcastic request of him. He asks him to treat the metaphorical disease Scotland is afflicted with, which in Macbeth’s view is the English invasion. Scotland is personified as a patient suffering an illness. But the irony of Macbeth’s words is that he is the disease and only his death can bring Scotland back to health again.

Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripp’d.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 8. In this final scene, we learn from Macduff that the Witches’ prophecy that no one born of woman could hurt Macbeth was correct. Macduff was born through Caesarean section and so is a threat to the usurper king. Macbeth’s fate is sealed. Macduff uses verbal irony as he mockingly refers to the Witches that Macbeth has served as “angels.”
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