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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nBut all seriousness aside, we recently read the Tomorrow and Tomorrow<\/strong> soliloquy from Macbeth, and were very touched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So…. a little background to Macbeth’s speech…. We’ve got an ambitious guy with a high maintenance, empowered<\/strong><\/em> wife. They get involved in some really nasty business, and unlike today’s republicans, they actually feel bad about it<\/em>. So bad, in fact, that Lady Macbeth kills herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And with all the turmoil surrounding him and his complicated relationship with his wife, MacBeth is overcome with grief and lost love and the folly and meaninglessness of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”<\/em> is the beginning of the second sentence of a soliloquy in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth<\/strong>. It takes place in the beginning of the fifth scene of Act 5, during the time when the Scottish troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, are approaching Macbeth’s castle to besiege it. Macbeth, the play’s protagonist, is confident that he can withstand any siege from Malcolm’s forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He hears the cry of a woman and reflects that there was a time when his hair would have stood on end if he had heard such a cry, but he is now so full of horrors and murderous thoughts that it can no longer startle him.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n Seyton then tells Macbeth of Lady Macbeth’s death, and Macbeth delivers this soliloquy as his response to the news.<\/p>\nWikipedia<\/a> \/ image by Elder G<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The words are beautiful, tragic, timeless. But some of us trip over the 400 year old dialect. Elder G<\/strong> helps us to imagine these words in a modern setting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elder G:<\/strong> Modern English Version <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n She should have died some other time;<\/strong> Tomorrow\u2026 and tomorrow\u2026 and tomorrow \u2014 We always imagine there will be some defining moment ahead \u2014 All of human life is like that: She is gone now. Life is just a story we tell ourselves,She should have died hereafter;
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
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life\u2019s 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.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, lines 17\u201328<\/pre>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ladyMac_0005_01.jpg\")
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The opening line is, arguably, one of the most emotionally revealing lines Macbeth ever speaks.
It shows resignation, not shock.
It is the hollowed out emotional core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
there would have been a tomorrow for that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
day after day dragging slowly forward,
as if time itself is worn out and out of breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
some final meaning \u2014
some point where all this struggle becomes clear \u2014
but each new tomorrow becomes only another today,
and then slips quietly into memory.<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/q3ikThaYjstMydbBc1Km-0-gs4qp.jpg\")
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a brief flare of noise and motion \u2014
then gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And all of this \u2014 every fear, ambition, victory, and disaster \u2014
becomes meaningless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
full of urgency and passion and thunder \u2014
and then the story ends.<\/p>\n– Elder G<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/20251105_0843_Grief-in-Hospital-Silence_simple_compose_01k9a7e4q1evfay7zsqbzrkezh.jpg\")
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