Macbeth act 5

Important Questions:

- Do you feel sympathetic towards Lady Macbeth?

- Describe the change in the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
- How has Macbeth’s character changed through the course of the play?
 Lost a part of himself with the murders
 Numb (no longer feels any emotion)
 Cold-hearted
 From a valiant warrior to a ruthless tyrant
 He is delusional and impractical
 He has embraced his inherent evil with full force
 He is now fighting for vengeance (fuelled by his revenge since, thanes fled and betrayed
him)
 His tyranny is unhinged and unstoppable, uncontrollable

1. Now that Banquo, Lady Macduff and her sons have all been murdered. Lady Macbeth has been
kept in the dark about all of these plans. Thus, the dynamic of their relationship has significantly
changed. In the time that she needs Macbeth the most; she has been left to the women in the
chamber to take care of her.

Act 5

Scene 1

Summary: this scene is a manifestation of all Lady Macbeth’s fears and repressed guilt that has been
left to fester. Thus, like a wound it hasn’t been cured and will eventually lead to amputation. The
intense atmosphere created reflects her mood and the internal turmoil in her mind. Lady Macbeth’s
sleepwalking is symbolic for her depleting/ disintegrating mental state and the manner in which their
sins have finally caught up to her.

Language: Shakespeare adopts varying language features to differentiate characters or tones of the
story. While the witches’ speech is in trochaic tetrameter, the normal story is in an Iambic pentameter.
However, Lady Macbeth in this scene uses Inverse/ Prose manner of speech which has been used for
the old man and porter in previous scenes. This manner of speech represents the local crassness. Her
disjointed/ fragmented speech, incoherence depicts her unstable state of mind.

- She seems possessed and almost insane.

- There is a stark difference between her personality seen when she refers to her hands as ‘little
hands’ thus, depicting feminine qualities (earlier: ‘turn my milk to gall’)

Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen

her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon

her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,

write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again

return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

This repetitive motion depicts hints of insantity. The paper depicts the following things:
1. It represents the letter she received from Macbeth
 2. It is almost as though she is trying to recreate the old relationship they had. Subconsciously,
this is her way of telling him how much she misses him and it is like, she is writing back to him
3. Or, she wants to take back everything that happened after she received the letter first
4. Or, she is replaying the scene over and over again- to, the first time the inception of murder
was planted in her head.

A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once

the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of

watching! 

Literal definition: It is unnatural to be asleep; yet act as though you are awake.
The above lines represent the distortion of the natural order of; which is a regularly occurring theme
through the play.

The Gentlewoman refuses to relay information:

- Macbeth’s tyranny
- She is afraid of slandering the queen
- There is no other witness

[Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper]

The significance of the candle:
- Establishes the night time setting
- Adds to the tension
- Portrays her almost as a ghost (depicting that she is in the final stages of her mortal life;
reality is slipping away)
- Creates an IRONIC comparison. As, while in the earlier scenes lady Macbeth seems to be
invoking/commanding darkness (e.g.......). not only does she rely on the darkness to hide
her sins but is also comfortable in it. However, now – she insists that the candle remains by
her side:
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her
continually; 'tis her command.

- ; alluding to her fear of the darkness and guilt ridden conscience.

IT IS ALMOST AS THOUGH SHE HAS MADE A PACT WITH TTHE EVIL AND NOW SHE IS FACING ITS
CONSEQUENCES.
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus

washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

‘accustomed’ : her usual, regular activity that represents a glimpse of OCD

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.
The above lines are a combination of arbitrary lines that have been mentioned in previous scenes.
- ‘one: two’ depicts the chiming of the clock during the scene of Duncan’s murder (Act 2
Scene 2)
- ‘ Hell is murky’  darkness and depicts her guilt ridden conscience
- These are all lines are from their fist sin of regicide.
- This automatic act is a reminiscence of her earlier remark after the murder of Duncan, "A
little water clears us of this deed." 
- While, Lady Macbeth didn’t understand the graviy of the situation and didn’t sympathise
with Macbeth when he returned to their room after Duncan’s murder. Now, the guilt of this
murder cant seem to be shaken off.

These words are spoken by Lady Macbeth in Act 5, scene 1, lines 30–34, as she sleepwalks through
Macbeth’s castle on the eve of his battle against Macduff and Malcolm. Earlier in the play, she
possessed a stronger resolve and sense of purpose than her husband and was the driving force behind
their plot to kill Duncan. When Macbeth believed his hand was irreversibly bloodstained earlier in the
play, Lady Macbeth had told him, “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2.65). Now, however, she too
sees blood. She is completely undone by guilt and descends into madness. It may be a reflection of her
mental and emotional state that she is not speaking in verse; this is one of the few moments in the
play when a major character—save for the witches, who speak in four-foot couplets—strays from
iambic pentameter. Her inability to sleep was foreshadowed in the voice that her husband thought he
heard while killing the king—a voice crying out that Macbeth was murdering sleep. And her delusion
that there is a bloodstain on her hand furthers the play’s use of blood as a symbol of guilt. “What need
we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account?” she asks, asserting that as long as
her and her husband’s power is secure, the murders they committed cannot harm them. But her guilt-
racked state and her mounting madness show how hollow her words are. So, too, does the army
outside her castle. “Hell is murky,” she says, implying that she already knows that darkness intimately.
The pair, in their destructive power, have created their own hell, where they are tormented by guilt
and insanity.

Doctor
Do you mark that?

- The doctor’s shock on becoming aware of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s acts

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.

- While audience assumes that Lady Macbeth isn’t aware of the murder of Lady MAcduff and
their children, we now become aware that she too feels a certain level of guilt and a burden
for these acts.
- ‘no more of that’ – reference to the Banquet scene
- Use of repetition

LADY MACBETH
Here's the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!

- Oh!- depicts a burst of emotion/ possible agony

- Refers to her hand as ‘little’ giving it feminine qualities (turn my milk to gall) IRONIC
- Reference to ‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood 
Clean from my hand?—therefore, so much time later lady Macbeth is suffering this same
guilt

Doctor
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

- ‘sorely charged’ : painfully burdened’

Gentlewoman
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
dignity of the whole body.
- Even if someone made me queen; i would prefer to not be made queen than, have such a
burdened heart

Doctor
This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known
those which have walked in their sleep who have died
holily in their beds.
- He tries to reassure himself that, he has known people who have sleepwalked and died
natural deaths

LADY MACBETH
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he
cannot come out on's grave.
- ‘wash your hands’- knocking scene
- The second revelation is made

Doctor
Even so?

LADY MACBETH
To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!

Thus a vivid and condensed panorama of all her crimes passes before her. Like all reported cases of
hysterical somnambulism, the episode is made up, not of one, but of all the abnormal fixed ideas and
repressed complexes of the subject. The smell and sight of blood which she experiences, is one of
those cases in which hallucinations developed out of subconscious fixed ideas which had acquired a
certain intensity, as in Macbeth's hallucination of the dagger. Since blood was the dominating note of
the tragedy, it was evidence of Shakespeare's remarkable insight that the dominating hallucination of
this scene should refer to blood. The analysis of this particular scene also discloses other important
mental mechanisms. 

How this scene creates tension:

 1. Language
2. Atmosphere
- The lack of natural light again, evokes a sense of unease and of strangeness in the reader, as
if the room itself is incompatible with nature,
3. Irony in Lady Macbeth’s dialogues
4. Character reactions (gentlewoman and the doctor)

Scene 2

Summary:

- In this scene the noose seems to be tightening on Macbeth

- While, he wants to meet his end with dignity (not plead or cry)—inherently he knows that
he is fighting a losing battle
- Revenge burns in Macduff and Malcolm due to Macbeth’s merciless murders of their
respective families
- Macbeth hasn’t been respected like Duncan was. Instead of referring to him as ‘noble King’,
etc. he is being called a ‘Tyrant’ and “Monster’ to depict the lack of love or respect for him
amongst his subjects and his own court

The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man

‘mortified man’ – even a dead man would arise to take revenge for such injustice

many unrough youths that even now

Protest their first of manhood.

Amongst the list of soldiers fighting with Malcolm and Macduff are several young men that haven’t yet
reached manhood (no beards) but, are yet willing to fight for justice.

Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:

Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

- Fortification: through moats, catapults, spears, etc.

- People say he is mad and others who hate him less say, that his anger is spurring from
bravery (valiant fury)
- He cannot control his diseased mind; neither, can he control the coutry like you can use a
belt.
- Belt imagery: how a belt controls/ holds a pair of trousers or used to hide belly fat; unlike
that, he cannot control his mind or his country
- Thus, he has now become unhinged, out of control, tyrannical, impulsive (traits that no King
should possess

Now does he feel

His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

- His past is finally catching up to him

- His murders are sticking to his hands like, slime
- There are revolts amongst his own ranks; reminding him of his own disloyalty, breach of
trust, unfaithfulness
- Those who listen to him don’t do it out of love, but out of fear
- Reinforces ‘dress him in borrowed robes’: he can’t fill the giant’s robe (Duncan’s shoes)
- ‘dwarf thief’ : depicts a lack of respect and low integrity (willing to go to any extent for the
throne); as though, it was a stolen crown that he wore since, he didn’t deserve it

Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?

- Who can blame his ‘fraid nerves’/ on edge

- When all the aspects of his nature are revolting against him
- His past is catching up to him
- He’s fighting an internal battle with himself

Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,

And with him pour we in our country's purge
Each drop of us.

- Malcolm is compared to the medicine of the country or the saviour

- Purge: cleanse, free country from the tyrannical reign
- ‘pour’ : blood
- Compared to Jacobean rule reference: they used to make an incision and allow the blood to
pour out to allow the body to rid itself of all the toxins and restore its balance; when the
body was plagued with disease

Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.

We will draw how much ever blood necessary, we need to water/nourish the sovereign
flower and drown the weeds (Macbeth and his followers)

Scene 3

Summary: Macbeth’s overconfidence and arrogant persona is depicted. His overconfidence and almost
gloating tone that stems from his blind belief in the witch’s prophecies. There is an inherent sadness
in the atmosphere as, not only his fellow thanes have fled and betrayed him – but his wife too is losing
all connection to sanity.

Even as Macbeth runs through the prophecies, his belief in their protective power blinds him to the
instability of his actual situation; the thanes have defected, his troops are loyal in name only, and
enemy armies are gathering nearby. He believes so strongly that the witches have given him a
complete and true vision of his future that he takes no preventive action when he learns 10,000 troops
have arrived in Scotland. Nonetheless, though he seems assured of his safety, he is less so in his
happiness.

- ‘spirits’ that know the outcome of all human consequence have confided in him/ reassured
him
- ‘false thanes’: disloyal
 - ‘Epicures’: weaklings, self-indulgent
- ‘sway’ – control myself
- ‘sag’- droop

Macbeth is fearless because of the prophecies, but he seems to wish he weren't. He knows his life is
awful, but he's so gripped by ambition that he can't turn back.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!

Where got'st thou that goose look?
- Discriminates against him by saying, may the devil turn you black, you white faced fool
- Uses derogatory names to establish his superiority

Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,

Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

- Because his face is so white from fear; Macbeth tells him to cover his paleness with blood
flow.
- The liver is known as the seat of courage; lily-liverd refers to a lack of courage
- Linen cheeks: his pale face is persuading others to be scared too
- ‘whey’ – the white liquid in milk
Seyton!--I am sick at heart,
When I behold--Seyton, I say!--This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton!

The significance of his servant’s name: ‘Seyton’ sounds like Satan; therefore, referring to how he sold
his soul to the devil and hence, now he has to pay the price.
- ‘push’ refers to the crisis at hand; which will either make him victorious or de-throne him
- Afterwhich, Macbeth ponders over his life and what it has come to.
- He compares life to an autumn leaf ‘sere’ alludes to it being dried and withered
- While, in old age one looks forward to the love and support of family and friends, honour
and respect as well as, obedience. Macbeth has none. Instead he gets curses (not loud,
instead behind his back); since, they know they will be punished. However, they are deep-
rooted and very meaningful.
- ‘mouth honour’: flattery that is said only for the sake of it. They dont mean it
- Lastly, what he has is a lingering life, which his heart would gladly end – though, he cannot
bring himself to end it.

I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.

- Being a King, Macbeth would rather die a dignified death, than flee and be called a coward

THROUGHOUT THIS SCEN MACBETH REPEATEDLY CALLS FOR HIS ARMOUR :

Give me my armour.
Give me mine armour.
I'll put it on
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Bring it after me.

This creates a contrast to his previous valiant self (valour’s minion, Bellona’s bride). Now he
has no way out but, to fight!

‘skirr’: means to search/ scour

- This depicts the manner in which Macbeth’s paranoia has begun to set in
- Send ot more horses to fortify the gates and hang anyone who peaks of fear
- Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear.
Next, instead of referring to Lady Macbeth as his wife he refers to her using a very detached term and
calls her ‘your patient’. This depicts the changing dynamic and a shift in Macbeth’s priorities.
To which, the doctor replies by saying that, although her disease is not physical it is the kind that
brings endless visions that torment her and keep her from sleeping. thick coming fancies,

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
- Macbeth’s tone in these lines are very nonchalant and casual. He proposes that she be given
a forgetting serum to ensure that in her detached state of mind; she doesn’t spill his secrets
- On the other hand, this can also be interpreted as, Macbeth inquiring for himself. As he
wishes to erase his memory and forget all the painful memories of the past. Thus, showing
Macbeth’s guilt too
- LITERAL: cure her of it then, erase all the troubles that are imprinting themselves in her
mind, give her something sweet that, will cause forgetfulness and that weighs on the heart

Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.
- With a disease such as this, only the patient can cure himself (In a time like this, Lady
Macbeth needs her husband the most. However, he is too caught up in murders and petty
things to save her.
MACBETH
Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.--Pull't off, I say.--
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?
- He becomes angry when the doctor suggests Lady Macbeth must cure herself, possibly
because that course might also require her husband's support, and Macbeth has no time for
that.
- Thus, he views her as a burden/ Macbeth’s selfish attitude is portrayed.
- His frantic dialogue and internal turmoil are connected as, he continuously switches
between instructions to the doctor and Seyton. This depicts his deteriorating mental state,
frantic state, internal battle and guilt-ridden conscience.
 - It also draws a parallel to Lady Macbeth’s state on Act 5 Scene 1 (disjointed, fragmented
speech pattern)
- He asks the doctor if he can find a cure to cleanse the country of all its enemies
- Similar, to how a doctor would take a urine sample to understand the disease; he asks the
doc to do the same with his country.
- ‘rhubarb, cynne’ are medicines, laxatives and cures
- He asks the doctor about Lady Macbeth, and then commands that the man cure her.
- Macbeth seems totally out of touch with reality. He is a man warped beyond any semblance
of humanity.

Doctor
Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.
- He uses flattery to say that Macbeth’s preparation is enough of an antidote

Scene 4
While, Malcolm seems very confident in their victory; Macduff is more practical and cautious

Scene 5

The opposition of light and dark as symbols for life and death is the foundation upon which much of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is built.

In Act V Scene V of Macbeth, strong words covey all of these thoughts to the reader. The tone for
Macbeth’s speech is immediately set after hearing of the death of Lady Macbeth. Having lost his queen,
and seeing his hopes turn to ashes, the bitter Macbeth now comments on life in caustic words.

“Tomorrow creeps in this petty pace.” The basic feel of this brings a negative connotation to
tomorrow. It keeps coming slowly and slyly as if to attack. What exactly does this petty pace refer to?
It is the progression of life, as Macbeth now sees it. This negative and dark imagery continues to grow
because tomorrow is unrelenting. “[T]ommorow creeps…To the last syllable of recorded time.”

With these dreary remarks Macbeth presents his hopeless outlook. He feels the only way to end the
pain of life is through death. “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.”

What can be taken from this is that from our earliest recollection, we are constantly being
guided forward from yesterday to our death. If light is life, then the light just leads us to death.
When these lines are read together it enables the reader to see the despair and agony Macbeth is now
suffering. The past is pushing him ahead and the future is creeping in on him. He has nowhere in time
or space to escape. Death is the only place left to go.

“Out, out brief candle!” Lady Macbeth’s candle has burnt out and soon his will also. Although he
talks here about life being light (the candle flame), light is not desirable to him. He wants to extinguish
it. Macbeth is at the point in his life where he is now trapped by his fate. The consequences of
his actions have caught up with him. This may very well be why he has such a dreary outlook on
life. Life is associated with light but Macbeth is at a state where he sees no significance in having lived.
“Life’s but a walking shadow.” Macbeth is saying here that one’s life is dark and dreary, and that the
light of life only serves to cast a dark shadow.

“ [A] poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more.” A person
lives his life like a bad actor. He only get one chance on the stage, and he does a terrible job. “Struts
and Frets his hour” says that everyone overdramatizes events. Life according to Macbeth is like this
and it ends…. “Signifying nothing.” We can easily distinguish between what is life and what is death in
the world of Macbeth through the interpretation of light/dark imagery.

Analysis:

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.
- Refers to preparations for victory (‘hang out ..’ )
- ‘seige’ is a strategy planned by the opposition. Wherein, they set up camp outside the
fortress of the Castle. To wait till, the castle runs out of resources and as an intimidation
technique. However, Macbeth believes that he can turn this around. Till, their camp suffers
from illness, lack of resources, hunger and thirst.
- This depicts Macbeth’s delusion and bad strategy/ planning. A warrior of that capability
and skill has now been reduced to this. (depicts the manner h=in which he wants to
constantly reverse the natural order of things)
- He continues by saying that if, so many of his soldiers and thanes hadn’t fled, then they
would have been able to attack; instead of waiting for the siege to end. They, would drive
the opposition back to England.

A cry of women within

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.
- The manner in which , the countless sins has made Macbeth Numb from emotion and
almost overconfident
- The fact that he has committed worse, more heinous crimes alludes to the fact that, the
mere cry of women does nothing to faze him or make him afraid, repent, morose or guilty
- However, there was a time when the cry of women would have made him shake in his
boots- for example in Act 2 Scene 2; when mere knocking had startled him and forced him
into a feared frenzy.
- dismal treatise rouse (sinister tale; like a ghost story)
- a time when his hair would rise, and he would get goose bumps when he heard a mere
ghost story/ gory—like the Banquet Scene which, seemed to be a manifestation of his worst
fears.
- Instead, now he has feasted on the true horrors of life (from murders, apparitions to
ordering the assassinations of all, slaughtering, mass prosecutions, etc. )
- Thus, horror is now familiar to his bloody thoughts and can no longer startle him or shake
him

SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
- Depicts her bad timing
- Although, he knew that it was going to happen eventually, he wanted it to have happened
after he came back victorious
- After which, he suddenly shifts to very philosophical tone; instead, of reminiscing their
good times- he begins to talk about life
- While, it would have been inevitable, he feels morose but no guilt since, he could have been
there for her / to help her heal
- However, some may interpret this line as, she deserved to live longer

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.
- Depicts the meaninglessness of life.
- Life is but a series of trivial, monotonous events till the last second of our very life
- As, our life comes to an end it marks the beginning of another life

- The phrase ‘out, out brief candle’ strikes an immediate association to Lady Macbeth’s scene
of Out, out damned spot.
- The candle represents her life that has now been extinguished and the manner in which
Macbeth too no longer wants to live. He knows that his end is near.
- The fact that Lady Macbeth needed to die to clear her off her sins; similarly, this
foreshadows Macbeth’s nearing end
- Thus, he is aware that the only way to clear his burdened conscience is death. Thus, panic
sets in
- Life is an illusion he says
- Then, he further compares life to a stage
- Whereas, we are the actors who spend our life on stage in vain as we are trying to prove
our dignity and passion and ultimately face death
- ‘full of sound and fury’ refers to the manner in which, we hype things up without any
definite meaning; it could refer to the unnecessary emotional baggage we drag with us on
stage
- This, depicts his now pessimistic way of thought; where man’s existence means nothing in
the bigger scheme of things (futility of life). This school of thought is referred to as
NIHILISM

Messenger
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

MACBETH
Liar and slave!

Messenger
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

MACBETH
If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
- If you are lying then, I will ensure that you will be hung alive, till you die of hunger. Till you
shrivel up with starvation and the blood drains out of your body
- A gory image is evoked (depicting his panic frenzy, fear and desperation)
- However, if you are telling the truth I wouldn’t mind facing the same fate as you

I pull in resolution, and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I begin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
- Thus, as Macbeth’s resolve is completely failing- for the first time, he begins to doubt the
witch’s prophecy; their indirect lies, equivocation and deception.
- If this is something that the messenger ascertains: they have no option but to fight.
- I begin to be aweary of the sun: he is now weary of life ; he has accepted his fate
- Macbeth wishes that the established order fall in chaos ; even in his final moments he wants
to distort the natural order of things (post his death too)—so that he can leave his legacy/
mark
- ‘wrack’- ruin
- He wants to at the least die a soldier’s death, with dignity and honour
How is lady Macbeth’s death made dramatic in this scene?
- Lady Macbeth has always been Macbeth’s pillar of strength, key strategist
- Now with her gone—his nihilistic attitude of life emerges (pessimistic/ he is fighting a
losing battle)
- Now everything has finally cr umbled
- His end in near
- Macbeth loses everything in this scene and his fate too is near (FINAL DOWNFALL OF HIS
CHARACTER)

1. Stage craft:
- Cry of women
- Panting messenger
- Seyton
2. Death of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s Nihilistic thoughts
3. Light and dark imagery
4. Contrast between start and end of this scene. Change in Macbeth’s character