We hear, our bloody cousins are bestow’d
In England and in Ireland, not confessing
Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
With strange invention.
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 1. Macbeth, to divert suspicion from himself, accuses the “bloody cousins” Malcolm and Donalbain of patricide – the murder of their father King Duncan. Speaking to Banquo, he says that the brothers have been making up lies – “strange invention” – to deceive their hosts. However, the audience knows that it is Macbeth who is the deceiver, one of the play’s many examples of dramatic irony.