For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.
MACDUFF Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
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:
Towards which advance the war.
Exeunt, marching
Scene 5
Dunsinane. Within the castle.
Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum and colours
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:
Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.
A cry of women within
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 cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.
Re-enter SEYTON
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
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 comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Messenger Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
MACBETH Well, say, sir.
Messenger As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look’d 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,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
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,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
Exeunt
Scene 6
Dunsinane. Before the castle.
Drum and colours. 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 we
Shall take upon ‘s what else remains to do,
According to our order.
SIWARD Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant’s power to-night,
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.
Exeunt
Scene 7
Another part of the field.
Alarums. Enter MACBETH
MACBETH They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, 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 Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.
They fight and YOUNG SIWARD is slain
MACBETH Thou wast born of woman
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born.
Exit
Alarums. Enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be’st slain and with no stroke of mine,
My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword with an unbatter’d edge
I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
And more I beg not.
Exit. Alarums
Enter MALCOLM and SIWARD
SIWARD This way, my lord; the castle’s gently render’d:
The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
The day almost itself professes yours,
And little is to do.
MALCOLM We have met with foes
That strike beside us.
SIWARD Enter, sir, the castle.
Exeunt. Alarums
Scene 8
Another part of the field.
Enter MACBETH
MACBETH Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.
Enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF Turn, hell-hound, turn!
MACBETH Of all men else I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; my soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already.
MACDUFF I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!
They fight
MACBETH Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripp’d.
MACBETH Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow’d my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’
MACBETH I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’
Exeunt, fighting. Alarums
Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers
MALCOLM I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
SIWARD Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
ROSS Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt:
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
SIWARD Then he is dead?
ROSS Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
SIWARD Had he his hurts before?
ROSS Ay, on the front.
SIWARD Why then, God’s soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so, his knell is knoll’d.
MALCOLM He’s worth more sorrow,
And that I’ll spend for him.
SIWARD He’s worth no more
They say he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.
Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH’s head
MACDUFF Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
The usurper’s cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass’d with thy kingdom’s pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
Hail, King of Scotland!
ALL Hail, King of Scotland!
Flourish
MALCOLM We shall not spend a large expense of time