I know the Director of the Shakespeare Institute knows this speech off by heart but it really is an amazing speech. I felt I needed to read it over and over again until I fully understood it, and that was before I'd even read the play and put it in context. Having read the play, which I love, the speech fits briliantly into how Macbeth is feeling at this point. In the introduction, it states that "every reader rejoices at his fall" but I don't. I sympathised with Titus when he has his sons heads returned to him and I felt sorry for Macbeth when he heard "a cry within". It's that point where you know what's going to happen and you hope that if you stop reading, it won't. But it always does because eventually you have to keep reading, if only to appreciate speeches like that one. Who knows what would have happened had Macbeth not met the witches but he did and obviously after he commits the first murder he is doomed. Yet it's that point where he's going to stand up and fight and it's pretty much just him and his wife against everyone, and then he finds out she's committed suicide. Of course there is the slight issue of the fact that since I saw the BBC adaptation, Macbeth will always be James McAvoy and Lady Macbeth will always be Keeley Hawes...