Macbeth Monologue (Act 5, Scene 5)

Macbeth’s final soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 5 can be broken down into two parts both literally, with the interjection from Seyton, and figuratively, as it’s almost as if they are two separate speeches from two separate characters. We have the unstoppable, bloodthirsty warrior King Macbeth, and the guilt-ridden, overcome and shattered Macbeth who has just been informed of the death of his wife and queen Lady Macbeth.

In this scene, Macbeth is preparing to go to battle with Malcolm, the son of the late King Duncan who has been murdered earlier in the play by Macbeth. Macbeth believes that no one of woman born can kill him, and thus in his increasingly deteriorating mind, he is unstoppable. This is where we find him, pumping himself up, preparing as he always would for battle.

Macbeth:
I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.

So before the famous soliloquy, Macbeth is remarking how little he fears anymore. He says what would have scared him before is nothing compared to the horrors he’s seen now. From offstage we hear a cry. So naturally, Macbeth asks:

(Re-enter Seyton)

Wherefore was that cry?

Remember that in Shakespeare’s time wherefore means ‘why’.
So a loose translation of the meaning is “Why was that cry made?”

Seyton:
The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Seyton leaves and Macbeth is left alone with his thoughts. Let’s explore exactly what’s going through the Mad King’s mind…

Famous Performances of Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5

“So if we take a speech like Macbeth’s last soliloquy ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ which, to crudely summarise, is a description of total blackness, total despair, that life is finite… it isn’t enough just to say that and put that quality of despair into the voice and just hope it and follow the rhythms. You’ve got to do many more things as well. You have to think and have analyzed it totally in rehearsal, so that your imagination, being fed by the concrete metaphors, the concrete images and pictures, can then feed through into the body, into gesture, into the timbre of the voice, into the eyelids, into every part of the actor’s makeup. So that it does seem, as I just said, that he is making it up as he goes along, although the actor, of course, knows that he isn’t.” – Ian McKellan

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving. You have to unlock it. You have to meet Shakespeare where he is. You can’t bring Shakespeare down to your level. You have to come up to this level. It’s a standard that your ordinary chops ain’t enough to get you over!” – Denzel Washington

This speech is one of the most famous in all of Shakespeare’s work. Hundreds of incredible actors have tackled it over the years! 

Thought & Language Breakdown

This speech, on the whole, is about life, death, and time. Though Macbeth begins by remarking that he no longer feels much fear. Before, a horrible cry would have chilled him to the bone and put his hair on end. Now, how his familiarity with cruelty and horror has made him unafraid. This newfound lack of fear gives him a feeling of power, but it is empty. There is no joy, no respite in it.

By the end of the speech, we find ourselves with Macbeth in a hole so deep it feels as if there is no way out. Once he learns that his wife is dead, life seems meaningless. All his ambition, greed and wickedness was for nought. The only thing to do now is to muse on the futility and fury of the world, the unfairness of it all, and the cyclical, cruel nature of life and death itself.

Now being a speech about time one of the things that Shakespeare employs to its full power here is rhythm. He was pretty big on rhythm. Let’s take a look. Here’s how we’ll break it down:

Thought Change: /
Beat Change: Space
Feminine Ending: (F)

I have almost forgot the taste of fears; /
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; / and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: / I have supp’d full with horrors; /
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me. /

(Re-enter Seyton)

Wherefore was that cry? /

Seyton: The queen, my lord, is dead.

She should have died hereafter; / (F)
There would have been a time for such a word. /
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, (F)
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time, / (F)
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. / Out, out, brief candle! (F)
Life’s but a walking shadow, / a poor player (F)
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: / it is a tale
Told by an idiot, / full of sound and fury, / (F)
Signifying nothing.

Firstly it’s interesting to note there are no feminine endings in the lines before the speech begins.  This is a pretty clear indication of how Macbeth is feeling confident and powerful. Completely ready to take on whatever the world throws at him, believing no man can kill him (not realising Macduff was not ‘born’ of woman, but rather taken from his mother’s stomach by cesarean).

When we move into the soliloquy we get a feminine ending on almost every second line. When Shakespeare uses these, it’s usually a pretty good indication that the character isn’t doing so great. And I think it’s fair to say that Macbeth, having just been informed of his wife’s death, isn’t doing so great. In all seriousness, we know not only from the way the verse is written how he’s feeling but by the language itself! He is heartbroken, defeated, and hopeless. He is in a state of total turmoil.

Modern Translation

Macbeth:
I have almost forgotten what it’s like to feel fear
In the past my blood would’ve ran cold to hear all these cries
And my hair would’ve stood on end as if it was alive to hear these stories of ghosts
But now I have feasted on real horror
There’s nothing so horrific you can show me now that will scare me

(Re-enter Seyton)

What was that cry?

Seyton: The queen is dead, my Lord.

She should have died at some time in the future
There would have been some time to speak on it
Tomorrow, and the day after and each day after that
Creeping along at its trivial pace
Until the very end of time
And all the days that have ever gone by have shown fools the way
to their humble and insignificant graves.
Blown out, snuffed out, like a fast burning candle at the end of its wick
Life, is nothing but an illusion, a trick
Like some poor actor who struts and boasts and worries away his brief time on the stage
Until it’s over, and the actor is never heard from again
It’s just a story, told by an idiot, full of noise and anger and distraction
Which in the end means nothing

Unfamiliar Words and Language

Cool’d (v.): Chill with terror, become cold with fear
Fell (n.): Skin, hide
Stir (v.): Move, rouse, excite
Treatise (n.): Story, Tale, Narrative
Dismal (adj.): Disastrous, calamitous, devastating
Supp’d (v.): Have supper
Direness (n.): Horror, terror, dread
Once (adv.): Ever, at any time
Start (v.): Startle, alarm, disturb
Hereafter (adv.): At some time in the future
Light (v.): Give light to, show the way to
Fret (v.): Distress oneself, worry, express discontent

Imagery & Literary Devices

Shakespeare makes the vast concepts of time, life and death very concrete with images. The poetry and the rhythm of this speech are for the actors benefit, so that after absorbing them he can express them with his body and voice.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow – The word is repeated three times, creating its own rhythm.

Creeps in this petty pace – The rhythm is also important here: creeps in this petty pace is a clue, the rhythm of footsteps.

Fools – A double meaning here, a fool may be an idiot or simpleton, but also an entertainer in a court (such as Feste in Shakespeare’s other work).

Dusty death – alliteration of ‘d’ and the image of a dusty grave. In an interview with Ian McKellan he speaks of using the image of a village idiot walking along a dusty path holding a candle to light his way.

Out, out, brief candle – The flame extinguishing on a candle. Whether by a gust of wind, or the end of the wick. Again, Ian McKellan offers the image of the candle the fool carries blown out by a gust of wind and him keeling over dead on the dusty path. The last candle we saw in the play is the candle that Lady Macbeth carried in her sleepwalking, hence the reference to a candle here for Lady Macbeth’s life.

A walking shadow – A moving facsimile, like an actor in a play. You may think about Plato’s allegory of the cave, and the moving shadows on the wall.

Player … stage – Being alive is like being an actor on a stage.

Conclusion

Do you think Hamlet has a grim outlook on life? Well, I don’t know about you but this is one of the grimmest outlooks I think there is. Macbeth is probably one of Shakespeare’s most famous characters and probably most likely to end up on your English syllabus, and for good reason. Macbeth is all at once the hero and the villain of his own story. Lady Macbeth the same. Two power-hungry people, overwrought with grief who make some life-altering, immensely consequential decisions and end up flying not just too close to the sun, but straight into it.

It really does go to show the mastery that Shakespeare had for character development, particularly at the time. To have a character flip so sharply and so quickly like that, all with the use of such beautiful poetry is truly quite incredible. This is one of my personal favourites, and I hope you enjoy it and get as much out of it as I do.