Act Five Scene Five.
What is that noise?SEYTONIt is the cry of women, my good lord.
ExitMACBETHI 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 SEYTONWherefore was that cry?
SEYTONThe queen, my lord, is dead.MACBETHShe 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.
Enter a MessengerThou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
MessengerGracious my lord,I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it.MACBETHWell, say, sir.MessengerAs I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.
The cry of women encourages Macbeth to reflect upon his changed relationship to fear. Interestingly the women cry because of the suicide of the Queen reminding the audience that emotionally sensitivity has not been utterly extinguished from this fallen world; even within Macbeth’s own castle, there are those who remain humane. Macbeth claims however that he is now desensitized to things that in the past might have disturbed him spiritually. ‘I have supp’d full of horrors.‘ This loss of sensitivity he attributes metaphorically to his vampiric feeding on cruelty which has nourished his moral degradation, throughout his fallen journey during the nightmarish play. The shift is linked to this journey of abject brutality which has destroyed his capacity for fear as he has committed so many atrocious actions that nothing seems shocking anymore.
His capacity for fear only reemerges when he realises that Macduff is not born of a woman so is his nemesis who can kill him. His imagination however reemerges shortly after this speech with the news of his wife’s death which generates the dismally brilliant epiphany expressed in the ‘tomorrow and tomorrow’ declaration which forms Macbeth s last soliloquy in the play.
The revelation that the Queen is dead returns Macbeth to the human world, where he is forced to reflect on the most important relationship of his life and yet also accept the irony that their mutual greed and ambition have made mourning impossible as they have created so many enemies that even time itself has deserted them.’ there would have been time for such a word.’ Here the irony is keenly acknowledged. Grief requires time and language. . Macbeth has neither. The world of ‘hereafter’ where he could weep over his beloved wife is lost to him. And the fault is all his own. The triangulation of the dead Queen, Macbeth and his Seyton creates one of the most searing acknowledgements of personal responsibility in Shakespeare.
What seems extraordinarily powerful and yet ironic for the audience, is that Macbeth s final soliloquy generates feelings of pity in the audience, for, despite our keen awareness of Macbeth’s personal monstrousness, his sense of profound futility touches on the universal predicament of us all. ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.’ McKellen’s delivery emphasizes the monotony and inevitability of the ‘R’ sounds in the repeated future that is no future, encapsulated in the word’ tomorrow.’ The only future facing Macbeth is one of bleakness and brutality and it is all his own fault.
Patrick Stewart’s version adds emphasis to the repetition of the heartbreaking conjunction,’ and’ which conjoins the escalating horrors of yet another day of life, whenever everything that had been worthwhile has been destroyed. It feels as if we are listening to someone gazing without any possibility of redemption into oblivion, an abyss of his own making. Little wonder that this speech supports a sense of hopelessness and irredeemable futility. Such nihilism is dismal indeed and the architect of the darkness in himself.
The fatal and fateful hamartia of Macbeth’s ambition has brought him to this lonely irredeemable point. Only death can release him from the suffering and emptiness of ‘ tomorrow’ and death leads immediately(and inevitably) to hell. The resigned scorn heaped upon Macbeth’s lonely fate, ‘ petty pace’ employs the plosive and alliteration to accentuate the horror of life’s moments where self-will is delusional.
The egotism of human beings is universally acknowledged in this speech as the audience recognise their own contribution to a ‘dusty death’ emanates from our overblown belief in our personal authority and self-authorship.
The wonder of Macbeth s imagination is perfectly encapsulated in the epigrammatic epiphany that human life is just a futile, ephemeral performance on the stage which creates the illusion of self-importance only to reveal its abject futility. ‘It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ Here we have Macbeth’s nihilistic recognition of his own hamartia. Look at the terrifying bleakness of that spat out ‘ Nothing.’ His ambition fuelled by the contaminating wickedness of the witches has destroyed everything he ever valued. He has believed he could author his own destiny but his ‘tale’ was never his to author. It was written by the witches who identified his pettiness and criminal impatience with harrowing consequences. The dramatic irony is that even though he does not commit literal suicide like his wife, his delusional faith in the malignancy of the witches, brings about his destruction inevitably.
The audience’s pity for a human being forced to admit that he is the origin and author of his own literal and spiritual extinction is surprising and renders the end of Macbeth a tragedy rather than just the squalid execution of Malcolm’s dismissive ‘ butcher’. The extract ends with the final unravelling of Macbeth’s deluded trust in the witches. The dramatic irony is perfectly done. We already know about the woods being used as camouflage, but Macbeth was in ignorance. Now the ‘nothing‘ of personal oblivion is approaching. Macbeth will have nothing left to believe in. Only his sword remains loyal to him as his gateway to extinction.
