In the 4th Scene, the soldiers are made to hew down boughs in Birnam wood, in order to conceal their numbers; thus giving a literal construction to the language of the weird sisters.
Scene 5th. Macbeth now trusts to the strength of his castle, and proclaims his confidence by ordering his banners to be hung on the outward walls. When he hears the cry of women, he comments on the effect of custom.
I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
. . . . . . .
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Can not once start.
When told of the queen’s death, he says it is unseasonable: “she should have died hereafter;” and his reflections on life have the same relation to the theme as those on his “way of life” in Scene 3d.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.