This speech takes place in act 1, scene 6, just after Lady Macbeth has read Macbeth's letter in which he relates to her the prophecies of the witches. After reading the letter, Lady Macbeth learns that King Duncan is coming to her castle, and she swears that Duncan's entrance there shall be "fatal." She tells Macbeth that Duncan "never / Shall sun that morrow see," meaning that she will have him murdered today.

Therefore, when Duncan arrives and greets Lady Macbeth as "our honour'd hostess," there is a keen sense of dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the audience know something that one or more of the characters on stage do not. In this case, we know that Lady Macbeth will act with anything but honour as Duncan's hostess, thus increasing the dramatic tension of the scene.

When Duncan says that "the love that follows us sometime is our trouble," he means that the love his people give to him sometimes causes him inconvenience. He then continues to say that he nonetheless always accepts the love, and he encourages Lady Macbeth to accept his love for her in the same way, even if he, in demonstrating his love by staying in her home, might have caused her some inconvenience. Duncan is being so polite here that it makes Lady Macbeth's real intentions appear all the more cruel and evil.