Macbeth
Macbeth Quotations and Analysis
1. “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
From Act 1, Scene 3, these are the first lines uttered by Macbeth when he first appears on the
stage accompanied by his bosom friend, Banquo. Immediately the playwright establishes the
theme of equivocation: the day is both fair and foul at the same time. It is fair in that Macbeth
and Banquo have won a great victory against the Norwegian invaders, but the atmosphere on
the blasted heath where the two men will meet the Weird Sisters is foul. Directly after this
quotation is spoken, the two men meet the witches and hear the prophecies that will set the
action of the play in motion. Notice the playwright’s rigid use of iambic pentameter here: there
are precisely ten, monosyllabic words on this line that follow the unstressed-stressed pattern
precisely. This gives the utterance extra weight and significance.
2. “This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature?”
In Act 1, Scene 3, after Macbeth has been informed by Ross and Angus that he has been named
Thane of Cawdor, he wonders in this soliloquy about the possible truth of the witches’
prophecies. After all, the first of their prophecies has just come true, and that means that
perhaps the second will as well [i.e. that Macbeth will become king]. This is the first time in the
play that Macbeth contemplates accelerating his fate by murdering Duncan. That is the
“suggestion” whose “horrid image” comes suddenly to Macbeth while Banquo speaks to Ross
and Angus elsewhere on the stage. However, we see that Macbeth is unnerved by this idea right
from the start, and he likely would not have gone through with it without the prompting from
Lady Macbeth.
3. “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
Without my stir.”
In this critical aside from Act 1, Scene 3, Macbeth reveals that he understands that a prophecy
should come to pass without any conscious action from the receiver of the prophecy. He
understands that if the witches have spoken the truth, then he will become king whether or not
he takes action to accelerate the process. Perhaps Duncan would have died of natural causes if
Macbeth had not murdered him. Either way, it is of great importance that the playgoer
understands that his decision to commit regicide was not an ignorant one.
4. “The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”
Here in Act 1, Scene 4, Macbeth fumes at the news that Duncan has reaffirmed his son
Malcolm's right to inherit the throne. Although Macbeth was previously only considering
accelerating his fate through violent action, his jealousy of Malcolm helps prod him into action.
This quotation, the final lines spoken by Macbeth at the very end of Act 1, set the stage for the
rising action in which the murder is consummated. Notice the playwright’s use of rhymed
couplets. Shakespeare liked to end important scenes with couplets to accentuate the moment,
and Macbeth’s six rhymed lines here are much stronger and more poetic than the five lines
spoken immediately after by Duncan which actually draw the scene to a close. The theme of
darkness is clearly expressed here as well: Macbeth calls upon the stars to cease shining so that
the horrible deed he plans to commit will go unseen.
5. “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.”
Having received a letter from her husband in the very beginning of Act 1, Scene 5, Lady
Macbeth muses upon her mate’s lack of ambition and resolve. We are shown right from the
very first moments in which Lady Macbeth is on stage that she is a Machiavellian schemer who
will push her husband to do an evil act if it will bring him greater fame. She loves Macbeth and
lives vicariously through his accomplishments, yet she does not admire his “human kindness”
which she feels impedes the success that he deserves. Lady Macbeth’s monologue introduces us
to a nuanced female character typical of Shakespeare’s complex vision of a woman’s place in
society. Despite the cultural norms that keep her from achieving power and influence herself,
Lady Macbeth affects the course of events through her control of her husband.
6. “The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty.”
In this soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth calls upon evil spirits to give her the strength
to impel her husband to murder Duncan. As this kind of cruel action is not womanly, she asks
the spirits to “unsex” her; i.e. to take away her soft, feminine qualities so that she may act
brutally. Birds are harbingers of evil deeds in many places in the play, and here the black raven
signals the coming murder of Duncan as he enters Macbeth’s keep.
7. “He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath born his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;”
Act 1, Scene 7 begins with Macbeth speaking a monologue in which he talks himself out of the
planned murder of Duncan (Lady Macbeth quickly sets him back on the path of regicide). His
reasons for not murdering Duncan are bonds of kinship and duty; plus he has the traditional
duty of a host to his guest. Shakespeare also includes strong Christian overtones here, as the
pious Duncan is a god-fearing man, and Macbeth fears retribution in the afterlife should he
murder his king. As usual, Shakespeare employs foils: Macbeth will be an evil and dark king in
contrast to Duncan’s Christian, benevolent reign.
8. “Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
As we enter the Rising Action, Macbeth’s mind is beginning to become unhinged in Act 2, Scene
1. Macbeth imagines that he sees a vision of a dagger leading him to Duncan’s room where he
will commit the murder. The dagger he sees is not real, since he draws his actual one
immediately after these lines are spoken. The playwright creates a very rich, complicated, moral
universe for his protagonist to inhabit. Macbeth has been contemplating the murder since the
beginning of the play, and he had resolved against it until his wife used guilt to persuade him
and questioned his manhood. By following this illusory dagger, Macbeth seems to be ceding the
decision to supernatural forces. It is left to the playgoer to decide if Macbeth can be held
responsible for the terrible deeds that he commits or if fate impelled him.
9. “Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’”
In Act 2, Scene 2, as Macbeth recounts his (partially botched) murder of Duncan to his wife, he
claims that he heard a voice in his head say these words. From the moment of the regicide,
Shakespeare plunges his medieval Scottish world into a macabre phantasmagoria in which
darkness and night rule. In this sinister setting Macbeth will continue to commit horrible acts as
he becomes an increasingly cruel tyrant. However, both he and Lady Macbeth will suffer from an
acute insomnia caused by the psychological toll of their responsibility for the murder. Recall that
in medieval times, people believed that the king was chosen by God to rule, and therefore
murdering the king was a terrible sin.
10. “Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus
And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well. If much you note him
You shall offend him and extend his passion.
Feed and regard him not.”
Act 3, Scene 4 is the climactic scene in the climactic third act. Here Lady Macbeth asks the
assembled thanes to excuse the bizarre behavior of her husband. Macbeth alone sees the ghost
of his murdered friend, Banquo. Lady Macbeth attempts to explain away Macbeth’s strange
actions by claiming that he has been subject to fits such as these since he was a child, but as
Macbeth becomes more and more upset by the ghost’s presence, it becomes impossible for her
to sweep this strangeness under the rug. We expect the climax of a Shakespearean play to be
the moment of greatest dramatic tension and also the turning point in which the plot begins to
move towards resolution (in a tragedy like this one, it moves towards a bloody denouement).
This banquet should mark Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s happy fulfillment of their dreams of
power, but instead it causes an increasingly growing rift between husband and wife. Having lost
his chance at a normal reign unbesmirched by guilt or suspicion, Macbeth will increasingly
embrace the evil patch from this time on.
11. “I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
At the very end of Act 3, Scene 4, Macbeth makes the frightful choice to return to the blasted
heath and consult the witches once more. In his conversation with his wife after the ruined
banquet, Macbeth uses a metaphor to compare his choices to a traveler fording a river. The river
represents evil, and Macbeth argues that he has waded halfway across the river, and so it is just
as easy to continue on this evil path as to retrace his steps and try to return to normalcy. As this
quotation takes place in the climactic scene of the play, the halfway across metaphor is especially
fitting. Also, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to reverse roles here, as she is now the one
urging him to be cautious.
12. “Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.”
All of the Apparitions and their prophecies in Act 4, Scene 1 are of great importance; the lines
spoken by the Third Apparition here were chosen as a likely representative. The Third Apparition,
which appears as “A Child Crowned, with a tree in his hand” represents Malcolm’s eventual rise
to power in the denouement. All of the prophecies Macbeth receives in this scene inspire him to
greater confidence in his chosen path, but the witches are a force of evil in the play, and the
prophecies all have ironic twists. Macbeth believes it is impossible for a forest to literally move
against him, but he does not imagine that it could be poetic license on the part of the
Apparition.
13. “Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defense
To say I have done no harm?”
Lady Macduff only appears in Act 4, Scene 2. Her murder is the most upsetting and tragic
demonstration of the depths of evil to which Macbeth has stooped. Just as Macduff is an
honorable foil for Macbeth, Lady Macduff is a foil for Lady Macbeth. While Lady Macbeth is too
ambitious at first and then descends into madness, Lady Macduff is cool-headed throughout.
She is well acquainted with the ways of the world, and she knows that she is merely a pawn in
the events that have swept across Scotland. She provides a counterbalance to Lady Macbeth’s
gender-role defying attempt to influence the events of the world. Her murder shortly after these
lines are spoken, and the murder of her children, impels her husband to seek revenge against
the tyrant Macbeth.
14. “Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky.
Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none
can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had
so much blood in him?”
As the Doctor and Gentlewoman look on, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep in Act 5, Scene 1.
The insomnia brought on by the murder of Duncan will not allow Lady Macbeth to sleep
peacefully, and her words as she talks in her sleep are damning evidence of her guilty
conscience. She imagines spots of blood on her hands that will not be washed away. Even
though she seemed bold and unafraid to clean up the mess left by Macbeth’s botched murder
of Duncan, we now see in the final act how these terrifying images have unhinged her mind. The
“old man” of whom she speaks is Duncan, and she is still seeing in her mind’s eye the mass of
blood surrounding him when she entered his chambers to “fix” the evidence after the murder.
The Doctor will say after this quotation that Lady Macbeth’s illness can not be cured by his
medicine, but rather that she must see a priest in order to be healed.
15. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
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.”
Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 5 is one of Shakespeare’s most powerful and poetic
speeches. Having been told of the suicide of his wife, Macbeth embraces a nihilistic view of the
world. In opposition of the Christian values of Duncan, Macbeth argues that life is meaningless
and history itself is of no consequence. The playwright often employed metaphors about the art
of drama itself, and here he compares life to an actor in an absurd, meaningless play. The degree
to which Shakespeare was both in the Classical tradition here (e.g. Plato’s allegory of the cave)
and yet light years ahead of his time (e.g. Existentialism) cannot be overstated. It is this most
crucial aspect of Shakespeare’s art that separates him from lesser artists: he gives expression to
the most profound elements of our experience as human beings. Macbeth has lost his wife to
suicide as a result of his own ambitious overreaching, and now, when he should be mourning,
he must instead go out onto the field of battle to kill again.
16. “Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.”
In the final scene of the play, Act 5, Scene 8, Macbeth meets Macduff face to face on the field of
battle. Believing the prophecies of the Apparitions mean that he is invulnerable, Macbeth learns
from Macduff that his enemy was not “of woman born,” but rather he was delivered via a
Caesarian section. On this technicality all of the prophecies have now come true, and Macbeth is
slain by Macduff (offstage). Macduff has thereby avenged the murder of his wife and children
and ended the nightmarish reign of Macbeth. This ironic technicality through which Macbeth is
slain reveals Shakespeare’s appreciation for the ancient Greek playwrights (such as Sophocles).
As with most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, our protagonist’s death ends the play, and the
surviving minor characters are left to pick up the pieces and restore order to a world rent
asunder by violence.
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1. “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
From Act 1, Scene 3, these are the first lines uttered by Macbeth when he first appears on the
stage accompanied by his bosom friend, Banquo. Immediately the playwright establishes the
theme of equivocation: the day is both fair and foul at the same time. It is fair in that Macbeth
and Banquo have won a great victory against the Norwegian invaders, but the atmosphere on
the blasted heath where the two men will meet the Weird Sisters is foul. Directly after this
quotation is spoken, the two men meet the witches and hear the prophecies that will set the
action of the play in motion. Notice the playwright’s rigid use of iambic pentameter here: there
are precisely ten, monosyllabic words on this line that follow the unstressed-stressed pattern
precisely. This gives the utterance extra weight and significance.
2. “This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature?”
In Act 1, Scene 3, after Macbeth has been informed by Ross and Angus that he has been named
Thane of Cawdor, he wonders in this soliloquy about the possible truth of the witches’
prophecies. After all, the first of their prophecies has just come true, and that means that
perhaps the second will as well [i.e. that Macbeth will become king]. This is the first time in the
play that Macbeth contemplates accelerating his fate by murdering Duncan. That is the
“suggestion” whose “horrid image” comes suddenly to Macbeth while Banquo speaks to Ross
and Angus elsewhere on the stage. However, we see that Macbeth is unnerved by this idea right
from the start, and he likely would not have gone through with it without the prompting from
Lady Macbeth.
3. “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me
Without my stir.”
In this critical aside from Act 1, Scene 3, Macbeth reveals that he understands that a prophecy
should come to pass without any conscious action from the receiver of the prophecy. He
understands that if the witches have spoken the truth, then he will become king whether or not
he takes action to accelerate the process. Perhaps Duncan would have died of natural causes if
Macbeth had not murdered him. Either way, it is of great importance that the playgoer
understands that his decision to commit regicide was not an ignorant one.
4. “The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”
Here in Act 1, Scene 4, Macbeth fumes at the news that Duncan has reaffirmed his son
Malcolm's right to inherit the throne. Although Macbeth was previously only considering
accelerating his fate through violent action, his jealousy of Malcolm helps prod him into action.
This quotation, the final lines spoken by Macbeth at the very end of Act 1, set the stage for the
rising action in which the murder is consummated. Notice the playwright’s use of rhymed
couplets. Shakespeare liked to end important scenes with couplets to accentuate the moment,
and Macbeth’s six rhymed lines here are much stronger and more poetic than the five lines
spoken immediately after by Duncan which actually draw the scene to a close. The theme of
darkness is clearly expressed here as well: Macbeth calls upon the stars to cease shining so that
the horrible deed he plans to commit will go unseen.
5. “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.”
Having received a letter from her husband in the very beginning of Act 1, Scene 5, Lady
Macbeth muses upon her mate’s lack of ambition and resolve. We are shown right from the
very first moments in which Lady Macbeth is on stage that she is a Machiavellian schemer who
will push her husband to do an evil act if it will bring him greater fame. She loves Macbeth and
lives vicariously through his accomplishments, yet she does not admire his “human kindness”
which she feels impedes the success that he deserves. Lady Macbeth’s monologue introduces us
to a nuanced female character typical of Shakespeare’s complex vision of a woman’s place in
society. Despite the cultural norms that keep her from achieving power and influence herself,
Lady Macbeth affects the course of events through her control of her husband.
6. “The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty.”
In this soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 5, Lady Macbeth calls upon evil spirits to give her the strength
to impel her husband to murder Duncan. As this kind of cruel action is not womanly, she asks
the spirits to “unsex” her; i.e. to take away her soft, feminine qualities so that she may act
brutally. Birds are harbingers of evil deeds in many places in the play, and here the black raven
signals the coming murder of Duncan as he enters Macbeth’s keep.
7. “He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath born his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;”
Act 1, Scene 7 begins with Macbeth speaking a monologue in which he talks himself out of the
planned murder of Duncan (Lady Macbeth quickly sets him back on the path of regicide). His
reasons for not murdering Duncan are bonds of kinship and duty; plus he has the traditional
duty of a host to his guest. Shakespeare also includes strong Christian overtones here, as the
pious Duncan is a god-fearing man, and Macbeth fears retribution in the afterlife should he
murder his king. As usual, Shakespeare employs foils: Macbeth will be an evil and dark king in
contrast to Duncan’s Christian, benevolent reign.
8. “Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
As we enter the Rising Action, Macbeth’s mind is beginning to become unhinged in Act 2, Scene
1. Macbeth imagines that he sees a vision of a dagger leading him to Duncan’s room where he
will commit the murder. The dagger he sees is not real, since he draws his actual one
immediately after these lines are spoken. The playwright creates a very rich, complicated, moral
universe for his protagonist to inhabit. Macbeth has been contemplating the murder since the
beginning of the play, and he had resolved against it until his wife used guilt to persuade him
and questioned his manhood. By following this illusory dagger, Macbeth seems to be ceding the
decision to supernatural forces. It is left to the playgoer to decide if Macbeth can be held
responsible for the terrible deeds that he commits or if fate impelled him.
9. “Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’”
In Act 2, Scene 2, as Macbeth recounts his (partially botched) murder of Duncan to his wife, he
claims that he heard a voice in his head say these words. From the moment of the regicide,
Shakespeare plunges his medieval Scottish world into a macabre phantasmagoria in which
darkness and night rule. In this sinister setting Macbeth will continue to commit horrible acts as
he becomes an increasingly cruel tyrant. However, both he and Lady Macbeth will suffer from an
acute insomnia caused by the psychological toll of their responsibility for the murder. Recall that
in medieval times, people believed that the king was chosen by God to rule, and therefore
murdering the king was a terrible sin.
10. “Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus
And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well. If much you note him
You shall offend him and extend his passion.
Feed and regard him not.”
Act 3, Scene 4 is the climactic scene in the climactic third act. Here Lady Macbeth asks the
assembled thanes to excuse the bizarre behavior of her husband. Macbeth alone sees the ghost
of his murdered friend, Banquo. Lady Macbeth attempts to explain away Macbeth’s strange
actions by claiming that he has been subject to fits such as these since he was a child, but as
Macbeth becomes more and more upset by the ghost’s presence, it becomes impossible for her
to sweep this strangeness under the rug. We expect the climax of a Shakespearean play to be
the moment of greatest dramatic tension and also the turning point in which the plot begins to
move towards resolution (in a tragedy like this one, it moves towards a bloody denouement).
This banquet should mark Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s happy fulfillment of their dreams of
power, but instead it causes an increasingly growing rift between husband and wife. Having lost
his chance at a normal reign unbesmirched by guilt or suspicion, Macbeth will increasingly
embrace the evil patch from this time on.
11. “I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
At the very end of Act 3, Scene 4, Macbeth makes the frightful choice to return to the blasted
heath and consult the witches once more. In his conversation with his wife after the ruined
banquet, Macbeth uses a metaphor to compare his choices to a traveler fording a river. The river
represents evil, and Macbeth argues that he has waded halfway across the river, and so it is just
as easy to continue on this evil path as to retrace his steps and try to return to normalcy. As this
quotation takes place in the climactic scene of the play, the halfway across metaphor is especially
fitting. Also, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to reverse roles here, as she is now the one
urging him to be cautious.
12. “Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.”
All of the Apparitions and their prophecies in Act 4, Scene 1 are of great importance; the lines
spoken by the Third Apparition here were chosen as a likely representative. The Third Apparition,
which appears as “A Child Crowned, with a tree in his hand” represents Malcolm’s eventual rise
to power in the denouement. All of the prophecies Macbeth receives in this scene inspire him to
greater confidence in his chosen path, but the witches are a force of evil in the play, and the
prophecies all have ironic twists. Macbeth believes it is impossible for a forest to literally move
against him, but he does not imagine that it could be poetic license on the part of the
Apparition.
13. “Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defense
To say I have done no harm?”
Lady Macduff only appears in Act 4, Scene 2. Her murder is the most upsetting and tragic
demonstration of the depths of evil to which Macbeth has stooped. Just as Macduff is an
honorable foil for Macbeth, Lady Macduff is a foil for Lady Macbeth. While Lady Macbeth is too
ambitious at first and then descends into madness, Lady Macduff is cool-headed throughout.
She is well acquainted with the ways of the world, and she knows that she is merely a pawn in
the events that have swept across Scotland. She provides a counterbalance to Lady Macbeth’s
gender-role defying attempt to influence the events of the world. Her murder shortly after these
lines are spoken, and the murder of her children, impels her husband to seek revenge against
the tyrant Macbeth.
14. “Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky.
Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none
can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had
so much blood in him?”
As the Doctor and Gentlewoman look on, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep in Act 5, Scene 1.
The insomnia brought on by the murder of Duncan will not allow Lady Macbeth to sleep
peacefully, and her words as she talks in her sleep are damning evidence of her guilty
conscience. She imagines spots of blood on her hands that will not be washed away. Even
though she seemed bold and unafraid to clean up the mess left by Macbeth’s botched murder
of Duncan, we now see in the final act how these terrifying images have unhinged her mind. The
“old man” of whom she speaks is Duncan, and she is still seeing in her mind’s eye the mass of
blood surrounding him when she entered his chambers to “fix” the evidence after the murder.
The Doctor will say after this quotation that Lady Macbeth’s illness can not be cured by his
medicine, but rather that she must see a priest in order to be healed.
15. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
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.”
Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 5 is one of Shakespeare’s most powerful and poetic
speeches. Having been told of the suicide of his wife, Macbeth embraces a nihilistic view of the
world. In opposition of the Christian values of Duncan, Macbeth argues that life is meaningless
and history itself is of no consequence. The playwright often employed metaphors about the art
of drama itself, and here he compares life to an actor in an absurd, meaningless play. The degree
to which Shakespeare was both in the Classical tradition here (e.g. Plato’s allegory of the cave)
and yet light years ahead of his time (e.g. Existentialism) cannot be overstated. It is this most
crucial aspect of Shakespeare’s art that separates him from lesser artists: he gives expression to
the most profound elements of our experience as human beings. Macbeth has lost his wife to
suicide as a result of his own ambitious overreaching, and now, when he should be mourning,
he must instead go out onto the field of battle to kill again.
16. “Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.”
In the final scene of the play, Act 5, Scene 8, Macbeth meets Macduff face to face on the field of
battle. Believing the prophecies of the Apparitions mean that he is invulnerable, Macbeth learns
from Macduff that his enemy was not “of woman born,” but rather he was delivered via a
Caesarian section. On this technicality all of the prophecies have now come true, and Macbeth is
slain by Macduff (offstage). Macduff has thereby avenged the murder of his wife and children
and ended the nightmarish reign of Macbeth. This ironic technicality through which Macbeth is
slain reveals Shakespeare’s appreciation for the ancient Greek playwrights (such as Sophocles).
As with most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, our protagonist’s death ends the play, and the
surviving minor characters are left to pick up the pieces and restore order to a world rent
asunder by violence.
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