The dialogue between Malcolm and Macduff in act 4, scene 3 is rather long and is often cut in performance. Read in full, however, the conversation is a masterly study in the initial manoeuvers between two men, each of whom has every reason not to trust the other. Malcolm tells a plethora of outrageous lies to see how Macduff will react and only begins to trust his fellow countryman after observing Macduff’s genuine horror and despair at the appalling picture the prince paints of his own character.

Malcolm has had to learn deceit quickly. When their father Duncan is murdered, Malcolm and Donalbain both realize that one of the thanes around them is likely guilty of the murder, and that they are both in grave danger. They will either be accused of the crime (which is what, in fact, happens) or they will be killed next. There is no one around them whom they can trust, and their only option is to flee. Lady Macduff, abandoned by her husband, is in a similar predicament, except that she has nowhere to go.

The straightforward, trusting nature of such characters as Duncan, Lady Macduff, and Banquo marks them out as victims in a play filled with duplicity. Lady Macbeth is continually urging her husband to be more deceitful, a lesson he seems to have learned quite thoroughly by the end of the play. Even in the midst of his own deceit and treachery, however, Macbeth continues to believe in the witches—despite all obvious clues that they are malicious figures—because he wants to believe what they have told him. It is only immediately before his death that he realizes how they have deceived him. The irony here is that the witches are one of the few characters in the play that are exactly what they seem: hideous and evil. The noble Banquo recognizes this and immediately treats them with contempt. It is only because Macbeth is already somewhat corrupt, even upon his first appearance in the play, that he is willing to place his trust in such obviously malign figures.