Macbeth Quote Analysis

Lady Macbeth greets Duncan by insisting that no amount of service her household could offer would be enough to repay the honors he has given them.

Lady Macbeth's language of excess—'twice done, and then done double'—performs the role of the grateful subject so lavishly that it borders on parody. The commercial vocabulary ('poor and single business to contend / Against those honours') frames hospitality as a transaction she can never balance, which flatters Duncan by making his generosity seem infinite. But her performance is so calculated that it draws attention to itself as performance, letting the audience see the gap between her words and her murderous intent.

Use this to argue that Lady Macbeth's hyper-fluent courtly language is a weapon—her ability to exceed what decorum requires (doubling and re-doubling her service) shows how easily she manipulates the social codes Duncan trusts, making her more dangerous than Macbeth, who struggles to perform loyalty convincingly.