Macbeth Quote Analysis

Macbeth instructs Lady Macbeth on how they must behave at the evening's banquet. He tells her they must flatter Banquo and hide their true intentions.

The word 'vizards' (masks) makes the face itself into a costume, something detachable from the self beneath. By separating 'faces' from 'hearts' syntactically—placing them in different clauses with 'disguising' as the hinge—Shakespeare enacts the split Macbeth describes: exterior and interior are now two separate entities that must be managed independently. This is no longer the struggle to seem innocent that Lady Macbeth described in Act 1; it has become their permanent mode of existence.

Support a thesis that Macbeth's kingship is defined by performance rather than authority—this quote shows rule as constant theatrical labor, where even a dinner requires costuming the self.