Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2. Like his fellow Scottish lord Menteith, Lennox also sees Duncan’s son as a healer for his country. He speaks of their soldiers giving as much blood as is needed to make “the sovereign flower” grow. He uses plant metaphors to compare the rightful king Malcolm to a royal flower and the Macbeths to “weeds” that have to be drowned in the blood of the soldiers.