Of all Macbeth's soliloquies, the most enigmatic (and, perhaps not coincidentally) the most famous is his final speech Act V, scene v of Shakespeare's Macbeth. In this speech, actually a eulogy to his wife who has just committed suicide, Macbeth describes life as an empty parade of events, totally lacking in meaning or significance. Our actions are little more than the building blocks of “the way to dusty death”, which “creeps in this petty pace” along a dull, monotonous road before finally culminating in “the last syllable of recorded time.” The world ends in neither fire nor ice, but in endless grey. And all of the pomp and circumstance with which we treat those actions are just “sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.”
And this last line, quoted almost as much as “To be or not to be”, appears to be the key to deciphering this speech's popularity. What better way to describe all of the 'world-changing' events, personal and national, that are constantly forced upon us? From movie releases to school graduations to new legislations, we are always being told that our lives are going to dramatically change, and shall either be perfected or devastated. And yet, this never truly happens. We have yet to see either the dawn of paradise, or the twilight of the apocalypse, and we never really will. And this is what draws us to this speech, and to Macbeth in general- it allows us a chance to meditate upon this realization, come to grips with it, and then decide what we ourselves are to do with it.
