Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! / Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence / The life o’ th’ building.
Act II, Scene 3 · Macduff
Context
Macduff, still struggling to announce Duncan's murder, describes the crime using religious and architectural language: the king's body was a sacred temple that has been broken into.
Analysis
Calling Duncan 'The Lord's anointed temple' fuses religious and architectural imagery, so that the murder becomes both sacrilege and structural destruction. The verb 'broke ope' is harsh and physical, cutting through the metaphor to remind us this is about a body being violated, not just a symbol. By framing the king as a building and his life as what animated it ('the life o' th' building'), Macduff makes regicide feel like the collapse of an entire order, not just one death.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Shakespeare uses metaphor to control how we interpret violence—by making Duncan a temple rather than simply a man, Macduff redefines the murder as the destruction of a sacred structure, which reframes Macbeth's ambition as not just immoral but cosmologically catastrophic.