Macbeth Quote Analysis

Having agreed to the murder, Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth they must return to Duncan's feast and hide their true intentions behind false appearances.

The alliteration of 'False face' and 'false heart' locks the two together sonically, as if the external lie and the internal truth are now inseparable—once Macbeth puts on the face, it becomes part of him. The parallel structure 'must hide what the…doth know' makes deception sound like a rule of nature rather than a choice, as if the false heart automatically generates the false face.

Use this to argue that Macbeth's language reveals he now sees duplicity as a permanent condition, not a temporary disguise—the couplet's tidy rhyme ('show'/'know') makes the split between appearance and reality sound inevitable, as if he has already accepted living as two separate selves.