Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!"

-William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

Oh, God, I'm using Macbeth again (I'm writing a sci-fi novel adaptation of the play, so it's on my brain a lot, especially when I have time like I did today to work on it a little).

But look at this line! It's gorgeous! All those tacit persuasion patterns. The diácope of Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow; the alliteration: petty pace, day to day, dusty death; the natural isocolon of his meter (10 syllables, 11 syllables, 10 syllables, 11 syllables, 11 syllables); the epizeúxis (emphatic repetition) of Out, out; the polýptoton of tomorrow, day, and yesterdays.

What would it be like without all that lovely textual juice?

Tomorrow and the day after that and so on creep along slowly until the end of time, and yesterday and all the time before that is just getting us fools one step closer to death. Life gets snuffed out like a candle with a short wick.

Booooring. Thanks for making the English language sound awesome, Will.