"The phrase the be-all and end-all is a noun that designates a thing that is much more important than all other things, the ultimate part of something." (Grammarist.com)
But this is not the way Macbeth uses it exactly. He says it when he is talking out loud to himself and the audience about killing King Duncan. Macbeth is stating that the blow that kills Duncan might be "the be-all and the end-all" moment--the impactful moment that could make all his dreams come true, as long as those dreams are about being the king of a country people don't really care that much about unless you're Canadian Mike Meyers.
I've never been able to wrap my brain around this idiom--which I guess is why it's an idiom (idioms are difficult to translate), which is why I'm opposed to idioms in general.
"Dead as a doornail" is another idiom that Shakespeare is responsible for, but it doesn't come from Macbeth, so I'm not going to dwell on it (it comes from Henry VI Part 2), but doornails were never alive in the first place, so how can it be dead? And I don't know what a door nail is, so why is it being compared to a thing that once had life? p.s. Chelsea Edge does not like for people to be called "things". I blame Wheel of Fortune for this.
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