Though you untie the winds, and let them fight / Against the churches; though the yesty waves / Confound and swallow navigation up; / Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown down; / Though castles topple on their warders' heads; / Though palaces and pyramids do slope / Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure / Of nature's germens tumble all together, / Even till destruction sicken, answer me / To what I ask you.
Act IV, Scene 1 · Macbeth
Context
Macbeth demands answers from the witches, declaring he does not care if they unleash total destruction on the natural and human world in order to answer his questions.
Analysis
Shakespeare builds this speech through anaphora—'though' repeated eight times—each clause escalating from wind to waves to crops to castles to pyramids, a syntactic piling-up that enacts Macbeth's willingness to sacrifice literally everything for knowledge. The phrase 'even till destruction sicken' is telling: he imagines destruction itself becoming exhausted, as if there is no limit he would not cross, and the relentless syntax makes that limitless hunger feel real.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Macbeth's tyranny is defined by a refusal of limits—this speech's escalating structure shows him willing to annihilate the entire world order just to secure his own future, revealing how unchecked ambition becomes indistinguishable from nihilism.