MACBETH: Thou losest labour: As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed: Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield, To one of woman born.5
MACDUFF: Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d.6
MACBETH: Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow’d my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.
My favourite scene in Act V is in Scene 8 line 11-26, the scene where Macduff and Macbeth encounter each other and are talking to each other before the fight. In this scene Macbeth realizes that Macduff is actually able to kill Macbeth, because Macduff was “Untimely ripp’d.” Now that Macbeth knows, he does not want to fight with Macduff, since he has a chance of getting killed.
I like this scene because this scene shows that Macbeth is not seen as a brave soldier anymore. From the beginning of the play, Macbeth had been portrayed as a brave soldier who came back from the battle harmless, however in this scene, he was about to reject Macduff, trying to fight against him. It shows the weak side of Macbeth and at the same time shows the readers that Macbeth is not that strong after all. Certainly, how Macbeth started hallucinating, after he murdered Banquo, also shows the readers how Macbeth is not as strong as he has been portrayed. However this scene in the climax of the play was more shocking to hear. Also, Macbeth seems furious that the witches have tricked Macbeth. Macbeth had trusted their foretelling for a long time, it had always been very accurate. As Macbeth obtained what he had always wanted, he becomes greedier and crueler. It’s interesting to see the transaction in Macbeth. This passage also gives the readers a message about how too much greed leads to failure.
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