This line is part of a speech that Lady M makes in Act
One, Scene five. She is trying to convince Macbeth to become a villain and murder King
Duncan. She encourages him to play the fabulous, welcoming host to the King, so that no
one will suspect his true intention -- murder.
She notes
that his face gives away his inside feelings:
Your face, my thane, is as a book where
men
May read strange
matters.
This is significant
in the course of the action of the play, because once Macbeth turns to a villainous
course of action and begins to hide his "serpent" behaviour behind a veil of niceness
and false innocence, he gets deeper and deeper into the crimes he must commit, including
the murder of his friend Banquo.
It is also significant in
that Lady Macbeth is the real brains behind the murder of Duncan, but Macbeth is the one
that actually carries all the crimes out. So, in his heart, was Macbeth really a
villainous murderer, willing to commit any act for the power of being King? Or, was he
led astray by his wife?
You could even consider a parallel
between Macbeth being swayed by Lady M and Adam being swayed by Eve in the Garden of
Eden. The mentioning of the serpent in this text is a nice reminder of who the real
villain was in Eden. If Macbeth had stopped to consider this parable, he might have
realised that he was heading to his own demise.
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