Macbeth: Act 5, Scene 5 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 5, Scene 5 of Macbeth from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colors. MACBETH 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 5 ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. A cry within of women. What is that noise?	Macbeth (still at Dunsinane) insists that banners be hung outside the castle. Many of his former forces are now fighting against him on the English side, making it difficult for him to meet the army in a glorious blaze. He's still feeling pretty good, since Dunsinane is so fortified that he imagines the enemy army will die of hunger and sickness before he ever even needs to leave the castle.
SEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord. He exits. 10 MACBETH I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been my senses would have cooled 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 supped full with horrors. 15 Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me. Enter Seyton. Wherefore was that cry?	When there's a cry from the women within the castle, Macbeth sends Seyton to find out what it's about. While Seyton is checking, Macbeth marvels at how steely his nerves are these days. There was a time when such a shriek would have frightened him, but he's been involved in so much shady stuff that nothing startles him anymore.
SEYTON The Queen, my lord, is dead. MACBETH She should have died hereafter. 20 There would have been a time for such a word. 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 25 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, 30 Signifying nothing. Enter a Messenger. Thou com’st to use thy tongue: thy story quickly.	Seyton returns to let Macbeth know his wife is dead. This inspires Macbeth to launch into one of Shakespeare's (and literature's) best known and oft-quoted speeches. It includes the famous bits, "Out, out brief candle!" and "Life's but a walking shadow […] a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury," which is not only a super early occurrence of existentialist thought in literature (predating the existentialist movement by about 400 years), but also the basis of William Faulkner's famous work, The Sound and the Fury.
MESSENGER Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do ’t. 35 MACBETH Well, say, sir. MESSENGER As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought The Wood began to move. MACBETH Liar and slave! 40 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 is quickly distracted by the news that a "grove" of trees seem to be moving towards Dunsinane, which is all around bad news, since said "grove" is likely Birnam Wood. He yells at the messenger who brings him this news, calling him a liar, but the messenger insists it's true.
MACBETH If thou speak’st false, Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive 45 Till famine cling thee. If thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much.— I pull in resolution and begin To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth. “Fear not till Birnam Wood 50 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 ’gin to be aweary of the sun 55 And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.— Ring the alarum bell!—Blow wind, come wrack, At least we’ll die with harness on our back. They exit.	Macbeth tells the messenger that if he's lying about these moving trees, he'll be hanging on the next tree they see. But eventually he realizes that the prophecy was as twisted as the prophets, and the trees of Birnam Woods are indeed moving on Dunsinane. Still, he's going to face the army anyway. If you have to go down, you might as well go down fighting.