There’s no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust, and my desire
All continent impediments would o’erbear
That did oppose my will: better Macbeth
Than such an one to reign.
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3. Malcolm falsely describes himself to Macduff as an extremely lustful fellow. Using a metaphor, he says that all the women in the kingdom could not “fill up the cistern of my lust.” He suggests that Macbeth is a fitter person than him to reign. Malcolm is deliberately lying and describing himself as the worst possible candidate for the throne, in order to test if Macduff is still loyal to Macbeth.