What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest: you have loved him well;
He hath not touch’d you yet. I am young; but something
You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb
To appease an angry god.
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3. Malcolm is not yet sure if he can trust Macduff or count on his loyalty. Here he tells him that he was once a Macbeth loyalist and he might sacrifice Malcolm to appease Macbeth. Using metaphors, Malcolm compares himself to an “innocent lamb,” and Macbeth to an “angry god.” At this point Malcolm and his brother Donalbain are in exile in England and Ireland, because they have been blamed on their father Duncan’s murder. In this passage Macbeth’s evil is emphasized, being described as a tyrant whose “name blisters our tongues.”