At the end of the play, when Macbeth learns that Macduff can kill him, he refuses to fight at first. But when Macduff tells him about his fate ("We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, / Painted upon a pole and underwrit, / ’Here may you see the tyrant") he decides that he will fight. This gives the audience a hint of his old bravery in battle: "Before my body, / I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, / And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’'(5,8). He calls for his shield, possibly hoping that his old bravery and honour can reappear and save him from death.