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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Macbeth Menteith Quotes

Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2. Scottish nobles and their supporters, once loyal to Macbeth, are now on their way to Birnam Wood to join up with the rightful Scottish king Malcolm to fight Macbeth. In this passage Menteith uses a metaphor to compare Malcolm and Macduff’s rage for revenge against Macbeth to a burning fire. He says that their cause for revenge would inspire even dead men to rise and fight.

Who then shall blame
His pester’d senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2. Menteith believes that Macbeth’s inner turmoil is what is making him act crazy. He paints an image of a troubled Macbeth who is essentially at war with himself because of the unnatural crimes and sins he has committed, including murdering King Duncan. If Macbeth has gone mad, then Menteith says that he has only himself to blame and has brought it upon himself.

Well, march we on,
To give obedience where ’tis truly owed:
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him pour we in our country’s purge
Each drop of us.

– William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2. Malcolm is referred to by Menteith in a metaphor as the medicine to cure a sick Scotland. In another metaphor he compares the soldiers that will fight Macbeth to drops of blood that will purge Scotland.