All 4 Uses of
contend
in
Macbeth
- contending 'gainst obedience,
p. 75.1 *contending = struggling
- The king hath happily received, Macbeth,
The news of thy success: and when he reads
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
His wonders and his praises do contend
Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,
In viewing o'er the rest o' the self-same day,
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death.†p. 21.3
- All our service
In every point twice done, and then done double,
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,
And the late dignities heaped up to them,
We rest your hermits.†p. 37.5
- He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugged their possets
That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.†p. 55.4 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(contend as in: She contended that...) to claim that something is true
-
(2)
(contend as in: She contended with it) to struggle or argue
-
(3)
(contend as in: She contended for the gold medal) to compete