Plot Summary
Act V, Scene V of Macbeth takes place inside Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth prepares for the approaching siege by Malcolm's forces. The scene opens with Macbeth projecting a defiant confidence. He orders his banners hung on the outer walls, boasting that the castle's fortifications will "laugh a siege to scorn" and that the enemy will starve before breaching his defenses. He concedes, however, that many of his own former allies have defected to Malcolm's side—were it not for those deserters bolstering the enemy ranks, he could have met them in open battle and driven them back.
A cry of women rings out from within the castle. Macbeth asks what the noise is, and Seyton, his attendant, exits to investigate. Left momentarily alone, Macbeth reflects on how deeply violence has numbed him. He recalls a time when a shriek in the night would have chilled his blood and made his hair stand on end, but now, having "supp'd full with horrors," nothing can startle him. Seyton returns with devastating news: Lady Macbeth is dead.
Macbeth's response is one of the most analyzed passages in all of Shakespeare. "She should have died hereafter," he says—a line that can be read as cold indifference, exhausted grief, or a recognition that death was always inevitable. This triggers his famous "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy, in which he meditates on the meaninglessness of existence. Time, he says, creeps forward at a "petty pace" toward the final moment of recorded history. All of human experience merely lights "fools the way to dusty death." He compares life to a brief candle, a walking shadow, and a poor actor who struts and frets on stage only to be forgotten. His most devastating image closes the speech: life is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Before Macbeth can dwell further on his nihilistic vision, a Messenger arrives with astonishing news. While standing watch on a hill, the Messenger looked toward Birnam Wood and saw it appear to move toward the castle. Macbeth, enraged, threatens to hang the man alive if he is lying. The Messenger insists the report is true—a moving grove is visible within three miles.
This revelation strikes at the foundation of Macbeth's remaining confidence. The witches had promised he need "fear not, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane," and now that seemingly impossible event is unfolding before him. Macbeth begins to "doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth," recognizing for the first time that the prophecies were deliberately misleading. In reality, Malcolm's soldiers have cut branches from the trees to camouflage their numbers—a tactic revealed in the preceding scene.
Despite his growing despair, Macbeth resolves to fight rather than hide. He declares himself weary of the sun and wishes the entire world undone, yet calls for the alarm bell and vows that "at least we'll die with harness on our back." The scene captures Macbeth at a pivotal turning point: stripped of his wife, his illusions, and his hope, he faces annihilation with a grim, almost reckless courage that makes him both terrifying and tragically human.