Macbeth Questions, Act 5

Scene 1
1. Where does this scene take place? From the information in this scene, who
resides there?
2. Write a detailed summary of what happened in this scene. Explain what each
character said and did.
3. Read the following lines and then translate and explain them.

Lines Your Translation

Lady Macbeth: 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?

Doctor: Do you mark

that?

Lady Macbeth: The

Thane of Fife had a wife;
where is she now? What
will these hands ne’er be
clean? No more o’ that,
my lord, no more o’ that.
You mar all with this
starting.
* “Fie” means “for shame”

4. What is Lady Macbeth doing in this scene and what does it tell you about her
emotional state?

Scene 2
1. Who does Menteith say is leading the English army? What reason does he give
that these three people are going to battle?
2. What are people saying about Macbeth?
3. Find the simile in this scene. Copy it down, cited correctly, and explain what it
means.

Scene 3
1. What is ailing Lady Macbeth?

Scene 4
1. Where does this scene take place?
2. What does Malcolm’s open lines mean? What is he referring to?
3. Why is the place they are meeting significant?
4. Translate the following lines:
Malcolm: Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
And bear’t before him: thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.
5. According to Siward, where is Macbeth?
6. According to Malcolm, Who is fighting with Macbeth?

Scene 5
1. Where does this scene take place?
2. Why do you think Macbeth is having banners hung on the wall?
3. How does Macbeth think the battle will turn out? What is his mood?
4. Translate the following lines:
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 feel 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.
Wherefore was that cry?
5. What was the scream?
6. How does Macbeth take the news?
7. Explain Macbeth’s metaphor about life.
8. What news does the messenger bring?
9. What will the messenger’s punishment be if he is lying?
10. What is Macbeth’s mood at the end of the scene?

Scene 6
1. What are Malcolm Siward, and Macduff preparing to do?

scene 7
1. Who dies in this scene? Why is Macbeth unafraid of him?

scene 8
1. Who is able to kill Macbeth?
2. Why is this person able to kill Macbeth, although the witches predicted that,
“no man born of woman” could kill Macbeth?
3. What do they do with Macbeth’s corpse?
4. What do they call Macbeth at the end?
5. What reward does Macolm give for those who helped to fight Macbeth?
6. How does the prediction from the witches that Macbeth can only be defeated
when “Great Birnham Wood to high Dunsinane Hill” prove accurate?