Macbeth • Act 5, Scene 5 • Macbeth
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,” — Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Meaning
After hearing that the queen is dead, Macbeth repeats 'to-morrow' to stress time’s slow, grinding motion and calls days 'petty' while likening life to a brief candle leading to 'dusty death.' The line expresses a bleak sense that time accumulates empty yesterdays and pushes toward an extinguished, insignificant end.
Plain-English meaning
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Who says it, and what is happening?
Seyton returns to tell Macbeth, 'The queen, my lord, is dead.' Macbeth answers that she 'should have died hereafter' and immediately launches into the meditation that begins 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.' In the local scene he converts the announcement into a sustained reflection, moving from an immediate reaction into a wider speech about days, mortality, and what past time has produced.
Language and literary analysis
The line’s power rides on repetition and metaphor. The triple anaphora 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow' slows the sentence and enacts the 'creeping' pace he describes; monosyllables and sibilance sharpen the grinding rhythm. Metaphors pile: 'all our yesterdays' light fools' and the 'brief candle' image collapse life into a short-lived illumination that can be snuffed out, while 'dusty death' emphasizes decay. Sharp exclamation—'Out, out, brief candle!'—turns lament into dismissal. Rhetorical piling, alliteration, and terse commands together shape a weary, generalized meditation in which personal news becomes a philosophical pronouncement on futility and the relentlessness of time.
How to use the quote in an essay
To support a claim about Macbeth’s growing nihilism, quote the repeating 'To-morrow' and the 'brief candle' metaphor. Use them to show how Shakespeare lets a report of death trigger a formal, rhythmic reflection that frames life as monotonous, fleeting, and ultimately extinguishable.
Questions about this quote
Does Macbeth mean time is literally creeping when he says 'creeps'?
When he says time 'creeps,' he uses a metaphor to describe perceived slowness and monotony; the language conveys his subjective sense that days move in a small, grinding pace. The passage presents this as Macbeth’s judgment about experience rather than an empirical claim about clockwork motion.
What does the 'brief candle' image suggest?
The 'brief candle' compresses life into a short-lived light that can be snuffed out, functioning as a metaphor for human fragility and transience. In the passage the image supports Macbeth’s weary view that life’s illumination is temporary and quickly succeeded by 'dusty death.'
Read this line in the complete side-by-side scene. · Read the scene revision guide.
Original text source: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, MIT HTML edition. MIT states that its HTML versions of the plays are placed in the public domain.