Macbeth Quote Analysis

After killing Young Siward, Macbeth stands over the body and mocks the weapons used against him, declaring that he cannot be harmed by anyone born of woman.

Macbeth personifies weapons themselves as laughable—he 'smiles at' swords and 'laughs to scorn' any blade held by a woman-born man—as if the tools of war have become a joke to him. This grotesque confidence, spoken over a young man's corpse, makes Macbeth sound unhinged rather than heroic. The repetition of 'born of woman' across three lines hammers the prophecy into a chant, suggesting Macbeth is clinging to it compulsively, using the witches' words as armor because his own mind can no longer bear the guilt of what he's doing.

Use this to argue that Macbeth's boastful language here exposes how prophecy has deformed his psychology—he no longer feels triumph in victory but instead performs invincibility through mocking laughter, revealing that belief in fate has made him hollow, not strong.