As he gets up and puts his clothes on he talks to himself, pretending that it is a knocking on the gates of hell and that he is the gatekeeper. “Do not as some ungracious pastors do,” she says, “ show me the steep and stormy way to heaven whiles like a puffed and reckless libertine himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede.”Īct 2, scene 3 in Macbeth is a short comic scene in which, just after the murder of Duncan, the porter at the gate of Macbeth’s castle is awakened by a loud knocking. Knowing the reputation for drinking and womanising among students in Paris, she warns him to be careful of preaching to her about virtuous behaviour.

In Hamlet, Ophelia is being lectured by her brother, Laertes, as to how he expects her to behave while he is away at university in Paris. In the plays it’s a metaphor with a reference to the road to hell. On the surface of it the primrose path is simply a flowery path or road. He does that three times in his plays and two of them become a primrose path or way. Shakespeare seems to have liked that idea very much as he uses it several times and creates the metaphor of a flowery road to bring it into focus. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” The idea comes from the Gospel of Matthew 7:3. Shakespeare’s audience would have been very familiar with the idea, drummed into them in most Sunday sermons, that if you want to go to heaven you will find the path a steep, narrow, thorny uphill climb, whereas the road to hell is, wide, pleasant and easy, and downhill all the way. Shakespeare uses the concept of a ‘primrose path’ several times through his works – this article explores both the concept and meaning of ‘primrose path’. Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order.

Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.

Road of sin is wide