Context:
Three reasons not to kill a king. When Macbeth debates the rights and wrongs of the murder in Act 1 Scene 7 he says:'I am his kinsman and his subject' and 'his host'. Obviously it would seem against the rules of hospitality to kill a relative who has come to dinner! It is, however, a far greater crime if that relative is a king. Macbeth notes he is one of the king's subjects and as such is expected to act out of absolute loyalty, but beyond this is the notion of the Divine Right of Kings. This means that the King is anointed as God's representative on earth. To commit a crime against him therefore is to commit a crime against God. So most of Macbeth's speech is about the 'deep damnation' of such an act. |
