Enter Menteith, Caithness,
Angus, Lennox, Soldiers.
MENTEITH
The English pow’r is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
3 Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
4 Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
5 Excite the mortified man.
ANGUS Near Birnam Wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
CAITHNESS
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LENNOX
8 For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file
Of all the gentry. There is Siward’s son
10 And many unrough youths that even now
11 Protest their first of manhood.
MENTEITH What does the tyrant?
CAITHNESS
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury; but for certain
15 He cannot buckle his distempered cause
16 Within the belt of rule.
ANGUS Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands.
18 Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith breach.
19 Those he commands move only in command,
20 Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
MENTEITH Who then shall blame
23 His pestered senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?
CAITHNESS Well, march we on
To give obedience where ’tis truly owed.
Meet we the med’cine of the sickly weal;27
And with him pour we in our country’s purge
Each drop of us.
LENNOX Or so much as it needs
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.30
Make we our march towards Birnam.
Exeunt, marching.
V.3Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.
MACBETH
Bring me no more reports. Let them fly all.
Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?3
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:5
“Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman
Shall e’er have power upon thee.” Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures.8
The mind I sway by and the heart I bear9
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.10
Enter Servant.
The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!11
Where got’st thou that goose look?12
SERVANT
There is ten thousand–
MACBETH Geese, villain?
SERVANT Soldiers, sir.
MACBETH
16 Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
17 Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
SERVANT
20 The English force, so please you.
MACBETH
Take thy face hence. [Exit Servant.]
Seyton!–I am sick at heart,
22 When I behold–Seyton, I say!–This push
23 Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough. My way of life
25 Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
30 Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Seyton!
Enter Seyton.
SEYTON
What’s your gracious pleasure?
MACBETH What news more?
SEYTON
All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.
MACBETH
I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.
Give me my armor.
SEYTON ’Tis not needed yet.
MACBETH
I’ll put it on.
37 Send out more horses, skirr the country round,
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.
How does your patient, doctor?
DOCTOR Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies40
That keep her from her rest.
MACBETH Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,44
And with some sweet oblivious antidote45
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
MACBETH
Throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it.49
[To an Attendant]
Come, put mine armor on. Give me my staff.50
Seyton, send out.–Doctor, the thanes fly from me.–
Come, sir, dispatch.–If thou couldst, doctor, cast52
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.–Pull’t off, I say.–
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug
Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?
DOCTOR
Ay, my good lord. Your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.60
MACBETH Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane61
Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.
Exeunt [all but the Doctor].
DOCTOR
Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.
[Exit.]
V.4Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, [Lennox, Ross,] and Soldiers, marching.
MALCOLM
Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
2 That chambers will be safe.
MENTEITH We doubt it nothing.
SIWARD
What wood is this before us?
MENTEITH The Wood of Birnam.
MALCOLM
Let every soldier hew him down a bough
5 And bear’t before him. Thereby shall we shadow
6 The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.
SOLDIER It shall be done.
SIWARD
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure
10 Our setting down before’t.
MALCOLM ’Tis his main hope,
11 For where there is advantage to be given
12 Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrainèd things
14 Whose hearts are absent too.
MACDUFF Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on15
Industrious soldiership.
SIWARD The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate–20
Towards which advance the war.
Exeunt, marching.21
V.5Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colors.
MACBETH
Hang out our banners on the outward walls.
The cry is still, “They come.” Our castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up.4
Were they not forced with those that should be ours,5
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,6
And beat them backward home.
A cry within of women. What is that noise?
SEYTON
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
[Exit.]
MACBETH
I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cooled10
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair11
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir12
As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,14
Cannot once start me.15
[Enter Seyton.] Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter:
18 There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
20 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,
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Enter a Messenger.
Thou com’st to use thy tongue: thy story quickly.
MESSENGER
30 Gracious my lord,
31 I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do’t.
MACBETH Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought
The wood began to move.
MACBETH Liar and slave!
MESSENGER
Let me endure your wrath if’t be not so.
Within this three mile may you see it coming.
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH If thou speak’st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive
40 Till famine cling thee. If thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin42
To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend43
That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam Wood Do come to Dunsinane,” and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,47 There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I ’gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.50
Ring the alarum bell! Blow wind, come wrack, At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
Exeunt.52
V.6Drum and Colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.
MALCOLM
Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down
And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we4
Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,
According to our order.6
SIWARD Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,7
Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF
Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.10
Exeunt. Alarums continued.
V.7Enter Macbeth.
MACBETH
They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly,
2 But bearlike I must fight the course. What’s he
That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none.
Enter Young Siward.
YOUNG SIWARD
What is thy name?
MACBETH Thou’lt be afraid to hear it.
YOUNG SIWARD
No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell.
MACBETH My name’s Macbeth.
YOUNG SIWARD
The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.
MACBETH No, nor more fearful.
YOUNG SIWARD
10 Thou liest, abhorrèd tyrant! With my sword
I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.
Fight, and Young Siward slain.
MACBETH Thou wast born of woman.
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.
Exit [with Young Siward’s body].
Alarums.
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