MACDUFF: Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.
MACBETH: "...And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last....Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
"Revel in power, respect it little, and you will, your reward, find." In another famous letter, by John Dalberg-Acton, which is misquoted, but go beyond the sound bite and you will find greater wisdom in it: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
Here, in Macbeth's court, did Shakespeare craft a play as cautionary tale: if you gain power by insidious behaviors, they will, as natural as rain in spring, come back upon you. In order to attain power, one must, of course, break those in opposition - it is cleanest and best. With Macbeth, the body count would include: King Duncan, two guards who may be aware of the plot (or not, doesn't matter when you are a pawn), Banquo, and Macduff's wife and son (his rival). The spree goes unchecked and would have remained thus, if Macduff had been born naturally, but was instead born cesarean. Macduff is, by prophetic luck, able to take Macbeth's head and the kingdom.
The news abounds with such stories. May justice prevail. For it will, today or tomorrow. And Macbeth's speech? The troubling part of all his efforts and affronts, of all the lives that he had ruined, in the end, they signified nothing. The act and demeanor of his demise was appropriate then.
Washizu, a transposition of Macbeth, in one of the best films of all time (Throne of Blood) finds that his men or only loyal up to their necessary surrender. They learned from their master as to what to do next.
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
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