Macbeth — Act 5, Scene 5in modern English, side by side

Dunsinane. Within the castle · Macbeth, Seyton, Messenger, Soldiers

Barricaded inside Dunsinane, Macbeth prepares to outlast a siege, still protected — he believes — by the prophecy about Birnam Wood. Within minutes he receives two blows: word that Lady Macbeth is dead, and a report that the wood itself appears to be moving toward the castle.

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Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton and Soldiers

Macbeth

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

Hang our banners out on the outer walls.

The cry is still, “They come!”

The cry is still 'They're coming!'

Our castle’s strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn:

Our castle is strong enough to laugh a siege to scorn.

here let them lie

Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Let them lie out there until famine and fever eat them up.

Were they not forc’d with those that should be ours,5

We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,

And beat them backward home.

If they hadn't been reinforced by the very men who should be ours, we could have met them boldly, beard to beard, and beaten them back home.

_A cry of women within._

Macbeth

What is that noise?

Seyton

It is the cry of women, my good lord.

It's women crying, my good lord.

_Exit._

Macbeth

I have almost forgot the taste of fears.10

I've almost forgotten what fear tastes like.

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.

There was a time when a shriek in the night would have frozen my blood, and a terrifying story would have made the hair on my skin rise and stir as if it were alive.

I have supp’d full with horrors;

Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,15

Cannot once start me.

But I have dined so full on horrors that dreadfulness, an old companion of my murderous thoughts, can't startle me even once.

Enter Seyton

Macbeth

Wherefore was that cry?

What was that cry for?

Seyton

The Queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.20

She should have died later — there would have been time then for a word like that.

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.25

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps along at this petty pace, day after day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have only lit the way for fools to their dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle!25

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:

Life is nothing but a walking shadow — a poor, pitiable actor who struts and frets away his one hour on the stage and then is never heard again.

it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.30

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, meaning nothing at all.

Enter a Messenger

Macbeth

Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

You've come to use your tongue — out with your story, quickly.

Messenger

Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do’t.

My gracious lord, I ought to report what I am certain I saw, but I don't know how to say it.

Macbeth

Well, say, sir.35

Well, say it, sir.

Messenger

As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

As I stood my watch on the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and suddenly it seemed to me the wood began to move.

Macbeth

Liar, and slave!

Liar! Slave!

Messenger

Let me endure your wrath, if’t be not so.40

Let me suffer your anger if it isn't true.

Within this three mile may you see it coming;

I say, a moving grove.

Within three miles of here you can see it coming — I tell you, a moving grove of trees.

Macbeth

If thou speak’st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee:45

If you're lying, you'll hang alive from the nearest tree until hunger shrivels you up.

if thy speech be sooth,45

I care not if thou dost for me as much.—

If what you say is true, I don't care if you do the same to me.

I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth.

— My resolve is buckling, and I'm beginning to doubt the devil's double-talk — the fiend who lies in words that sound like truth.

“Fear not, till Birnam wood

Do come to Dunsinane;”50

'Fear not, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane'

and now a wood50

Comes toward Dunsinane.

— and now a wood is coming toward Dunsinane.

—Arm, arm, and out!—

To arms, to arms, and out to meet them!

If this which he avouches does appear,

There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.

If what this man swears to is real, there's no running from here and no staying either.

I ’gin to be aweary of the sun,

And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.—55

I'm beginning to grow weary of the sun, and I wish the whole structure of the world would fall apart right now.

Ring the alarum bell!

— Ring the alarm bell!

—Blow, wind! come, wrack!

Blow, wind! Come, ruin!

At least we’ll die with harness on our back.

At least we'll die with our armor on our backs.

_Exeunt._

Famous lines in this scene

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” line 21

Hearing that his wife is dead, Macbeth sees time as a meaningless crawl of identical days, each one merely lighting fools the way to death. It is the most famous statement of despair in Shakespeare — spoken by a man who murdered to control the future, and now finds that future empty.

“Out, out, brief candle!” line 25

Macbeth orders life itself to be snuffed out like a candle — brief, dim, and easily extinguished. The image joins the play's pattern of fragile light against overwhelming darkness, including the candle Lady Macbeth carried while sleepwalking, and compresses his entire despair into five short words.

“Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage” line 26

Life, says Macbeth, is as unreal as a shadow — a pitiable actor given one hour on stage, who plays his part anxiously and is never heard from again. The 'poor' player is to be pitied, not mocked: human effort is brief and quickly forgotten. The theater metaphor turns all striving into performance.

“full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” line 29

The soliloquy's conclusion: life is a story told by someone incapable of meaning — noise and passion adding up to nothing. Faulkner borrowed the phrase for his novel The Sound and the Fury. For essays, it marks the endpoint of Macbeth's arc: ambition achieved, and found utterly empty.

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