I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in ‘t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. Macbeth has committed such horrendous slaughter and vile crimes that he has become desensitized to evil. After women’s screams are heard from within the castle to signal Lady Macbeth’s suicide, he shows no reaction or emotion. Using a dining metaphor, he admits that he has feasted on so much horror that his conscience and emotions no longer function. Another metaphor “taste of fears” likens fear to an edible object. At this point Macbeth has become completely dehumanized.