What I would like to add to the previous answer is that
the line referred to in your question alludes to Lady Macbeth in a curious way. A female
pig that has devoured her nine babies must be a very unnaturally cruel mother reminding
us of Lady Macbeth's words in act 1 scene 7:
readability="17">
I have given suck, and
know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks
me:
I would, while it was smiling in my
face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless
gums'
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as
you
Have done to
this.
The strained violence
of Lady Macbeth's language here is intended to show her fiendishness as a mother. The
mother-pig in the reference cited by you may be taken as an animalish version of that
fiendish mother. The grease collected from the hangman's rope which is the other
component required to invoke the apparitions is an underhand reference to Macbeth while
the sow's blood refers to his accomplice in crime.
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