er Macbeth's head is chopped off (5.8.78). Never outside of Act 1 Scene 3 is it used to refer to Macbeth. The witches greeting to Macbeth also flatters him by differentiating him from his peer Banquo. While Banquo at this point in the play is an equal of Macbeth, Banquo is not greeted at all. The witches do not even refer to Banquo until halfway through the scene; after he begs them to prophesize about his future.In Act 1 Scene 7 Lady Macbeth cuts Macbeth down in order to convince him to kill Duncan. She insults him in two ways. First, she attacks his masculinity. She tells Macbeth that he is not actually a man when Macbeth tells her that he doesn't want to kill Duncan: "What beast was't then / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were a man." (1.7.47- 49). Lady Macbeth equates masculinity with the ability to be violent; thus her attack resonates not only with Macbeth's fears about sexuality, but also about his inability to act. The effectiveness of her words is revealed when Lady Macbeth's words are echoed in his own mind and he begs Lady Macbeth to stop harassing him, "Prithee, peace." (1.7.45). Macbeth's insecurities about his ability to commit murder is fascinating because it is almost a mirror of Lady Macbeth's own self-hatred in Act 1 Scene 5, when she herself begs to be unsexed so she can no longer feel remorse. Lady Macbeth's second way of insulting Macbeth is to tell him that he doesn't keep his word. Lady Macbeth claims that Macbeth has broken his word to kill Duncan. To Lady Macbeth, the inability to keep one's word is an affront. She tells Macbeth that she in contrast would keep her word. In order to illustrate this point she says that even if she said she would take a baby and, "have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn / As you have done to this." (1.3.57-59). Loyalty to one's word, thus, becomes contrasted to loyalty to ...
