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“make strange images of death”
Wordplay
Act 1,
Scene 3
Lines 95-98

An explanation of double meaning in the phrase “make strange images of death” in Act 1, Scene 3 of myShakespeare’s Macbeth.

Ross

In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
He finds thee in the stout Norwegian ranks,
Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
Strange images of death. As thick as hail

This phrase employs double meaning:

  • Macbeth was not afraid of the Norwegian soldiers whom he slaughtered and made into images of death.
  • Macbeth was not frightened by the horrifying scene he had made: a field of corpses.

(Battle of Kringen, Georg Nielsen Stromdal, c. 1897)