ISC Macbeth Workbook Answers : Act 5 Scene 5

This scene takes place inside Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane. The English army together with the deserters from Scotland is marching towards his castle. Macbeth is confident to be secure because of his fortified castle which can withstand the attack of the enemy. He says:

Our castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Cry of Lamentation: Macbeth asks his soldiers to display their banners on the walls of the castle. Suddenly a heart-rending cry of lamentation is heard. Macbeth says to himself that nothing can frighten him now. But it had not been so in the past. He remembers earlier times when just an ordinary shriek at night would freeze his mind and body and would make his hair stand on end as if it were alive. But now he has experienced horrors. His evil deeds have hardened him and therefore no horrid sights or sounds can startle him.

Death of Lady Macbeth: Macbeth wants to know the cause of the cry of lamentation. He was told that the Queen is dead. Macbeth reflects on the futility of life. He feels that the days pass at a slow pace till the last recorded moment is reached:

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
The way to dusty death.

He says that human life is very brief like that of a burning candle. It is a walking shadow. It is like a stage actor who struts and frets on the stage for sometime and vanishes into nothingness. Life is like a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Movement of Birnam Wood: When Macbeth is thinking about the futility of human life, a messenger brings some alarming news. He tells Macbeth that when he was standing on duty on the hill, Birnam Wood seemed moving towards Dunsinane. This upsets Macbeth; he tells the messenger that if the news turns out to be false, the messenger would be hanged alive on the next tree. If it is true he could hang Macbeth in the similar way. The reality is that Malcolm has asked each soldier to cut down a branch of a tree and carry it in his hands while marching in order to conceal their numbers. Macbeth has been relying on the prophecies of the witches. Now he hears about the movement of Birnam Wood towards his castle. This has shattered his confidence. The witches had assured him that he would not be vanquished till Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane. Macbeth suspects the equivocation in the language of the witches. He begins to doubt the double meaning in their prophecies. Yet he has some hope that the messenger’s report may turn out to be false.