The word ‘done’ appears multiple times – I count 36 occurrences – though our attention is drawn to it particularly in Act I, and significantly at the start of the play: ‘When the hurly-burly’s done, / When the battle’s lost and won’ (I.i). ‘Done’ is also mentioned in various contexts throughout the play, highlighting those significant themes of winning and losing which are established in the play’s opening scenes.

The etymology of ‘done’ (the origin of the word) is quite complex. To simplify, it is the past participle of do (v.) from Old English gedon meaning ‘completed, finished, performed, achieved.’ It passed through Middle English and the medieval period as ‘don’, and by Shakespeare’s time it had taken on the meaning of acceptance of a deal or wager which had been carried out – or executed. It also started to be used as ‘done in’, meaning exhausted, and students may make links between the murder and the consequential fatigue which plagues the Macbeths.

What’s done is done has become an idiom in English and is often attributed to Shakespeare. In the play, though, ‘done’ often works with antitheses, and you will remember Lady Macbeth’s ‘What is done cannot be undone’ (V. i) encapsulates the key themes of making choices and then living with the consequences of doing a thing.

Done is most usually used in respect of doing or carrying out the murder. The word sounds just a little bit too final, doesn’t it? Shakespeare avoids longer descriptors: ‘completed’, ‘finished’, ‘performed’, ‘achieved’ – and ‘accomplished’ would be too biblical and messianic. Christ says, ‘it is accomplished’ or ‘finished’ (King James Version). 

Of all Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth is probably the most focused on the senses: sight, touch, and especially sound (How is ‘t with me, when every noise appals me?) Nowhere is this more evident than in Macbeth’s almost whispered soliloquy which begins ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly’ (I. vii). This is key to our understanding of the word. ‘Done’ sounds short, blunt, and Macbeth wants the murder - ‘it’ – quickly done and out of the way. Shakespeare has chosen to repeat the single syllable / monosyllabic ‘done’ for its dull, final quality.

By the end of the soliloquy, it is associated with the tolling – the ‘knell’ – of the dull bell, connected with Duncan’s death. That tolling or ringing for a funeral is what in English we still call, symbolically, a ‘death knell’ and Shakespeare personifies it as an agent of Macbeth’s own darkness: ‘I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.’ Macbeth sees it as the signal to send the king’s soul on its way, but his own language gives Macbeth away – he is worried about the state of his own soul and the prospect of his own ‘hell’: ‘Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.’ It tolls for the death of Duncan, for sure, but also tolls the death of Macbeth’s sanity.

A point about Shakespeare’s wordplay is worthy of final note. It is that there is an aural connection between the word ‘done’ in relation to the ambitious murder, and the name of the murdered. Though they have different meanings the act of ambition when ‘done’ is inseparable from the murdered king; the homophone ‘done’ - though differently spelt - is the first syllable of the king’s name – Duncan.

Dr David Moses
Assistant Head (6th Form)