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Act 5 Sc 5:
SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Let's dig into this one.
1/
SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Let's dig into this one.
1/
You have to see Macbeth's line "She should have died hereafter" in its context, esp the speech immediately before:
"I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek [...]
Direness [...]
Cannot once start me."
2/
"I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek [...]
Direness [...]
Cannot once start me."
2/
At this point in the play, Macbeth realises he has become numb to "direness". He has committed so much evil that new "horrors" no longer frighten him. He has lost the fear that characterised his initial response to killing Duncan, and he has lost his humanity in the process.
3/
3/
So that line, "She should have died hereafter"...
We want it to be significant, important -- this is Macbeth's reaction to his wife, his partner, his spur to greatness -- but in fact it's almost...emotionally blank.
4/
We want it to be significant, important -- this is Macbeth's reaction to his wife, his partner, his spur to greatness -- but in fact it's almost...emotionally blank.
4/
My Arden edition suggests two readings:
"She would have died at some point sooner or later"
OR
"She ought to have died at a future time (when there would have been a chance to mourn her"
5/
"She would have died at some point sooner or later"
OR
"She ought to have died at a future time (when there would have been a chance to mourn her"
5/
Either way, it's hard to read much emotion into what M says; perhaps the reason is that he doesn't feel emotion any more.
This moment spurs his "tomorrow and tomorrow" speech -- it brings home to him the futility of his life, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
6/
This moment spurs his "tomorrow and tomorrow" speech -- it brings home to him the futility of his life, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
6/
The word HEREAFTER is worth looking at closely, though, because it links with the play's recurring motif of TIME.
The murder of Duncan interferes with the natural course of events, with fate itself, and so is often framed as a disruption in TIME.
7/
The murder of Duncan interferes with the natural course of events, with fate itself, and so is often framed as a disruption in TIME.
7/
Assorted examples:
ROSS: "Dark night strangles the travelling lamp."
Lady M: "I feel now the future in the instant."
Lady M: "To beguile the time, look like the time."
Lady M: "Never shall sun that morrow see."
Macbeth: "Time, thou anticipate'st my dread exploits"
etc.
8/
ROSS: "Dark night strangles the travelling lamp."
Lady M: "I feel now the future in the instant."
Lady M: "To beguile the time, look like the time."
Lady M: "Never shall sun that morrow see."
Macbeth: "Time, thou anticipate'st my dread exploits"
etc.
8/
HEREAFTER is a great word for encapsulating this, because it seems to exist in two times itself, HERE and AFTER, and because it seems to imply both "from now on" and "at some future time". Shakespeare used it both ways in his plays.
9/
9/
It is a word that connects Duncan, the Witches, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself:
3rd WITCH: "Thou shalt be king hereafter" (1.3)
DUNCAN: "Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland" (1.4)
LADY M: "Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter" (1.5)
10/
3rd WITCH: "Thou shalt be king hereafter" (1.3)
DUNCAN: "Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
The Prince of Cumberland" (1.4)
LADY M: "Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter" (1.5)
10/
So the word sends us back to the start of the play, when all was ambition and promise.
HEREAFTER was a word in Act 1 that signalled the conferring of power, but Macbeth in 5.5 has no power left to confer.
11/
HEREAFTER was a word in Act 1 that signalled the conferring of power, but Macbeth in 5.5 has no power left to confer.
11/
HEREAFTER was a word that suggested the Macbeths' dominion over fate and time, but now in 5.5 it just signals the imminence of death.
Shakespeare develops the disruption of time in M's soliloquy: "tomorrow...day to-day...yesterdays" but it suggests futility now, not power.
12/
Shakespeare develops the disruption of time in M's soliloquy: "tomorrow...day to-day...yesterdays" but it suggests futility now, not power.
12/
I hope this thread has helped you think about the line "She should have died hereafter".
thanks for reading.
13/13
thanks for reading.
13/13
