"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is the third sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. It is the response of the protagonist, Macbeth, to the news of his wife's death. The speech can be divided into two parts, with the line "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" marking the beginning of the second part. The full soliloquy reads:
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"She should have died hereafter; |
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Interpretation
The first sentence has caused much debate. Whether Macbeth was more concerned with the timing of his wife's death than the fact of her passing remains open to interpretation. The rest of the speech is a rush of despair. Macbeth is seeing life as a story, and death as a natural occurrence that is to be welcomed. He has seen so much death, and caused so much pain to others, that he has become numb to it. He no longer cares about anything, and wishes to die himself.
References to the passage
- "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is also the name of an essay by Aldous Huxley. It was collected along with other works as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and other essays, originally published in 1956.
- The soliloquy is the source of the title of William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, Robert Frost's poem “Out, Out—”, and others, for example, used the line "All Our Yesterdays".
- The line "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is referenced to in the Dresden Dolls song "Sex changes".
- "Tomorrow and Tomorrow," the title of the third movement of the King Crimson song "Epitaph," is most likely a reference to this soliloquy.
- "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is paraphrased in the Alexisonfire song "No Transitory".
- "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," is also the title of the last short story in Kurt Vonnegut's collection of short stories titled Welcome to the Monkey House.
- The passage "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...from day to day" is referenced to in the episode "Theo and Cockroach" from The Cosby Show, when Clair Huxtable, after looking at Theo and Walter (Cockroach)'s Cleland Notes, quotes the passage walking out of the living room, leaving the two boys baffled and a bit uneasy. Theo asks, referring to the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow etc." passage, "Was that from Macbeth??" and Cockroach assures Theo, "It couldn't have been; it wasn't in the Cleland Notes." (Actually, the phrase is mentioned in the CliffsNotes of Macbeth.)
- Alastair MacLean also used this soliloquy as a title for his novel The Way to Dusty Death.
- The original "Star Trek" TV series' third-season episode title "All Our Yesterdays" was taken from this soliloquy. The other original "The Office" tv series' 7th season 3rd episode also uses this allusion.
- Vladimir Nabokov makes a pun on "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" in the final pages of Lolita when he has Quilty say "I have not much at the bank right now but I propose to borrow--you know, as the Bard said, with that cold in his head, to borrow and to borrow and to borrow."
- Author Anne Rice's title character of The Vampire Lestat repeats the phrase "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" referencing his mother's impending death.
- The eight episode of the first season of "Stargate SG-1" is entitled "Brief Candle" to signify a short life.
- Excerpts from the speech are used as prologues to chapters of Thomas Hardy's 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd.
