Things have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
Was pitied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead:
And the right-valiant Banquo walk’d too late;
Whom, you may say, if ‘t please you, Fleance kill’d,
For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.
Who cannot want the thought how monstrous
It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
To kill their gracious father? damned fact!
How it did grieve Macbeth! did he not straight
In pious rage the two delinquents tear,
That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
Was not that nobly done?
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 6. Lennox’s speech is dripping with sarcasm and irony, as he expresses the growing hostility among the nobility towards Macbeth. He draws comparisons between Fleance fleeing after his father’s death and King Duncan’s sons fleeing after their father’s murder. He says that men must not be out walking too late. He sarcastically speaks of the loyalty Macbeth showed by killing two guards who were drunk and asleep, and how Macbeth was sorry for Duncan only after he was dead.