Act 4 Scene 3

In this chapter, there was a lot of imagery of disease and death. "To offer up a weak, poor innocent lamb, t'appease an angry god."(Page180) Malcolm says this to warn Macduff that Macbeth will probably kill him next. "It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds."(Page182) This symbolism of injury is to show how bad Scotland is getting under Macbeth's rule. "That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state esteem him as a lamb, being compared with my confineless harms."(Page 184) This quote is significant because it symbolizes how Macbeth seems so innocent compared to other tyrants. Malcolm is the one who says this, and it is at this time that Macduff tell him that he needs to take what is rightfully his. Then they begin to talk about a disease that is called "the King's Evil." Malcolm says that this disease is not curable by anyone else but Macbeth by hanging a gold coin around their neck, and that Macbeth has a healing blessing. "The dead man's knell is there scarce asked for who, and good men's lives expire before the flowers in their caps, dying or ere they sicken."(Page 192) This is the quote where Ross enters and tells them how Scotland really is and how everyone is dying of sickness. "Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer, to add the death of you."(Page 194) This is where Ross tells Macduff that his wife and children were brutally murdered, and this quote is symbolic in showing that they were innocently murdered to hurt Macduff.