Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before't.

Mal.
'Tis his main hope;
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.

Macd.
Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siw.

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 V. Dunsinane. Within the Castle.

Enter, with drums and colors, MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers.

Macb. 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. What is that noise? [A cry within, of women.

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have cooled
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 supped full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.- Wherefore was that cry?
Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macb. 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 com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mess. Gracious my lord,

I shall report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.

Macb.

Well, say, sir.
Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

Macb.

Liar and slave!

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

Macb.

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 pall 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 a weary 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 VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.

Enter, with drums and colors, MALCOLM, Old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c., and their Army, with boughs.

Mal. Now near enough; your leavy 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 us what else remains to do,
According to our order.

Siw.

Fare you well.—

Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,

Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

[Exeunt. Alarums continued.

SCENE VII. The same.

Another Part of the Plain.

Enter MACBETH.

Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, 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.

Yo. Siw. What is thy name?

Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

Macb. Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.

Macb.

My name's Macbeth.

Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.

No, nor more fearful.

Macb. Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

Macb.

[They fight, and Young Siward is slain.
Thou wast born of woman.-

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandished by man that's of a woman born.

Alarums. Enter MACDUFF.

[Exit.

Macd. 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 kernes, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbattered edge,

I sheathe again unheeded. 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. Alarum.

Enter MALCOLM and Old SIWARD.

Siw. This way, my lord.-The castle's gently rendered: 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.

Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them.

Macd.

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee; But get thee back; my soul is too much charged With blood of thine already.

Macd.

I have no words;

Thou losest labor:

My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!

Macb.

As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air

[They fight.

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.

Macd.

Despair thy charm; And let the angel, whom thou still hast served, Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripped.

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cowed 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.
Macd. 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 upon a pole; and underwrit,

Here may you see the tyrant.

I'll not yield

Macb.
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 damned be him that first cries, Hold, enough.
[Exeunt, fighting.

Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drum and colors, MAL-
COLM, Old SIWARD, ROSSE, LENOX, ANGUS, CATHNESS,
MENTETH, and Soldiers.

Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived. Siw. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. 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 confirmed

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.

Siw.

Then he is dead?

Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field; your cause of

sorrow

Must not be measured by his worth, for then

It hath no end.

Siw.

Had he his hurts before?

Rosse. Ay, on the front.
Siw.

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 knolled.

Mal.

And that I'll spend for him.
Siw.

He's worth more sorrow,

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 on a pole.

Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art. Behold, where stands

The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:

I see thee compassed 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.