Act 5 of Macbeth brings every prophecy true and every promise false: Birnam Wood does come to Dunsinane and Macduff was not “born” of woman in the usual way, and Macbeth dies learning that the witches told him the truth in words designed to deceive.
This summary takes Act 5 scene by scene, from Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking to Malcolm’s victory. Each scene covers what happens, the key lines, and why it matters. For the whole story, see our full guide to Macbeth. For what came before, see our Act 4 summary, and for everyone who appears here, see our guide to the Macbeth characters.
At a Glance
Here is Act 5 of Macbeth in brief.
Act 5, Scene 1: The Sleepwalking Scene
At Dunsinane castle, a doctor and a gentlewoman watch for Lady Macbeth, who has been walking in her sleep.
She enters carrying a candle. “She has light by her continually; ’tis her command,” says the gentlewoman: the woman who once called on “thick night” to hide the murder can no longer bear the dark. Her eyes are open, but she sees nothing. She rubs her hands as if washing them, which the gentlewoman has seen her do for a quarter of an hour at a time.
Then she speaks, reliving the crimes in fragments. “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” She hears the clock strike for Duncan’s murder, scolds her husband for being afraid, and remembers the blood: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” She moves on to Macduff’s murdered family, “The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?”, and back to her hands: “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” and “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” She tells her absent husband that Banquo is buried and cannot come out of his grave. Her last words are “What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed!”
The doctor knows he cannot help: “More needs she the divine than the physician.” He tells the gentlewoman to remove anything she could harm herself with, and to watch her.
Act 5, Scene 2: The Scottish Lords
Near Dunsinane, a group of Scottish lords, including Lennox, marches to meet the English army led by Malcolm, Siward, and Macduff.
They will join them near Birnam Wood. They report that Macbeth has fortified Dunsinane; some say he is mad. Angus describes a king whose followers obey only because they must: “now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe / Upon a dwarfish thief.” The crown never fit him. The lords march on to give their loyalty “where ’tis truly owed.”
Act 5, Scene 3: Macbeth at Dunsinane
Inside the castle, Macbeth refuses to hear any more bad news.
“Bring me no more reports; let them fly all,” he says. Until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane he cannot be touched by fear, and Malcolm, after all, was born of woman. When a frightened servant arrives to report ten thousand English soldiers, Macbeth abuses him: “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!”
Alone for a moment, he sees his life clearly: “I have lived long enough: my way of life / Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf.” The things that should come with old age, “honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,” he will never have, only curses and flattery. He calls for his armor. When the doctor says Lady Macbeth is troubled by visions, Macbeth demands a cure: “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?” The doctor answers that the patient must heal herself. “Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it,” Macbeth replies, and wishes the doctor could cure Scotland instead.
Act 5, Scene 4: Birnam Wood
Malcolm’s army, now joined by the Scottish lords, reaches Birnam Wood.
Malcolm gives an order: “Let every soldier hew him down a bough / And bear’t before him.” The branches will hide how many men are marching, so Macbeth’s scouts cannot report their true numbers. None of them knows about the prophecy. For a military reason, the forest is about to move toward Dunsinane.
Act 5, Scene 5: “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow”
Macbeth is confident that his castle can outlast any siege: “Hang out our banners on the outward walls.”
A cry of women is heard. Macbeth notes that he has “almost forgot the taste of fears”: once a shriek in the night would have frozen him, but he has “supp’d full with horrors.” Seyton returns: “The queen, my lord, is dead.” Macbeth’s answer is one of the most famous speeches in English: “She should have died hereafter,” and then, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” Life is “a walking shadow, a poor player,” and “a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Our guide to what “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” means reads the speech in detail.
A messenger arrives, terrified. Standing watch on the hill, he looked toward Birnam, and “The wood began to move.” Macbeth threatens to hang him if he is lying, then begins to understand: “I pull in resolution, and begin / To doubt the equivocation of the fiend / That lies like truth.” He will not wait for a siege. He will go out and fight: “Blow, wind! come, wrack! / At least we’ll die with harness on our back.”
Act 5, Scene 6: The Army Arrives
Outside Dunsinane, Malcolm tells his soldiers they are near enough: “your leavy screens throw down, / And show like those you are.”
Old Siward and his son will lead the first attack, and Malcolm and Macduff will follow. Macduff calls for the trumpets to sound: “Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, / Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.”
Act 5, Scene 7: The Battle
Macbeth fights on, trapped but still relying on the last prophecy.
“They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, / But bear-like I must fight the course,” he says, like a bear chained for baiting. Young Siward challenges him and is killed. “Thou wast born of woman,” Macbeth says over the body, still sure no such man can harm him. Macduff searches the battlefield for Macbeth alone, refusing to fight hired soldiers: if anyone else kills Macbeth, “My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.” Meanwhile, Siward reports that the castle has surrendered easily, since many of Macbeth’s own men are fighting for the other side.
Act 5, Scene 8: Macbeth and Macduff
Macbeth refuses to take his own life. “Why should I play the Roman fool, and die / On mine own sword?” Then Macduff finds him: “Turn, hell-hound, turn!”
Macbeth has avoided this man above all others: “my soul is too much charged / With blood of thine already.” They fight, and Macbeth boasts that he bears “a charmed life, which must not yield, / To one of woman born.” Macduff answers with the truth: “Macduff was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d.” He was not born in the ordinary way but cut from his mother. Macbeth’s courage breaks. He curses the “juggling fiends” who “palter with us in a double sense,” keeping their promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope, and refuses to fight.
Macduff tells him to yield, then, and live to be displayed like a freak at a fair: “Here may you see the tyrant.” That Macbeth will not accept. He will not kneel before young Malcolm. Though the wood has come and his enemy was not born of woman, “yet I will try the last.” “Lay on, Macduff, / And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” They fight, and exit.
Malcolm, Siward, and the lords enter in victory. Siward learns that his son has died in the battle. Then Macduff enters carrying Macbeth’s head: “Behold, where stands / The usurper’s cursed head: the time is free.” All hail Malcolm as King of Scotland. Malcolm promises to reward his supporters with new titles, and speaks of “this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,” who, “as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life.”
A Closer Reading: “The Fiend That Lies Like Truth”
Every prophecy in Macbeth comes true, and every one of them deceives him, because the witches never lie. They tell the truth in a way designed to mislead.
Birnam Wood does come to Dunsinane, as branches carried by soldiers. No man “of woman born” harms Macbeth; the man who kills him was cut from his mother’s womb. The words are exact. What deceives Macbeth is the meaning he chose to hear. He heard “impossible” when the prophecy said only “unlikely.” When he finally understands, he names the trick precisely: “the equivocation of the fiend / That lies like truth,” and fiends that “keep the word of promise to our ear / And break it to our hope.”
The play warned him, and us, from the start. In Act 1, Banquo said that “the instruments of darkness tell us truths” in order to “betray’s / In deepest consequence.” In Act 2, the drunken Porter imagined an “equivocator” arriving at the gate of hell, one who swore to anything and still could not equivocate his way into heaven. The Porter was joking about a sinner. He was describing Macbeth.
And Macbeth has lived by the same method himself. His career has been one long equivocation: “Fair is foul,” “look like the innocent flower,” “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” He deceived Duncan with a welcome, Banquo with an invitation, and Scotland with grief for the men he killed. In Act 5 he is destroyed by exactly the kind of statement he spent the play making: words that are true on the surface and false underneath. The witches did to him what he did to everyone else. Our guide to the themes in Macbeth follows fate and equivocation through the whole play.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Act 5 of Macbeth, answered briefly.
What Happens in Act 5 of Macbeth?
Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, haunted by guilt, and later dies. Malcolm’s army advances carrying branches from Birnam Wood, fulfilling one prophecy. In battle, Macduff reveals he was “untimely ripp’d” from his mother’s womb, fulfilling the other, and kills Macbeth. Malcolm becomes king.
How Does Birnam Wood Come to Dunsinane?
Malcolm orders every soldier to cut a branch from Birnam Wood and carry it in front of him, to hide the army’s size. From the castle, it looks as if the forest is moving.
How Is Macduff Not “Of Woman Born”?
He tells Macbeth he was “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d,” meaning he was cut out of his mother before a natural birth, rather than born in the ordinary way.
How Does Lady Macbeth Die?
Her death happens offstage and is announced to Macbeth in Scene 5. At the end of the play, Malcolm says it is thought that she took her own life “by self and violent hands.”
How Does Macbeth End?
Macduff kills Macbeth in single combat and brings his head to Malcolm, declaring, “the time is free.” Malcolm is hailed as King of Scotland and promises to reward those who helped him.
Related Reading
Three pages that take Macbeth further.