Quote: “Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires; The eye wink at the hand, yet let it be, which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.” This is Macbeth saying for God (or stars, thought to be heaven) to not watch, or see his dark thoughts of becoming king. It aslo says that he hopes his eye (maybye concince?) will ignore what his hands are doing because he feels bad about it. He knows he is being bad but wants to pretend he can escape the consequences.
King Duncan is being informed that (old) Thane of Cawdor was executed and died with dignity. Then King Duncan greets Macbeth and praises him saying he has nothing to repay him enough, Macbeth saying he needs no payment because serving the king is enough in itself. (Even though he secretly wants to be king.) Then the King announces his son Malcolm will be King next, not Macbeth. Obviously Macbeth is annoyed, but he pretend to be ok with it until he says in an aside the “stars, hide your fires…..” quote. He wants to be King, no matter what it takes. This is treason and goes against the old Hierarchy of God-King-Thanes-Wealthy-paid-slaves-, and he knows it, so asks for God not to watch, this hints he is about to do soothing bad….
