watching. In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. Doct. You may, to me: and 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. stand close.

Observe her;

Doct. How came she by that light?

her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Would, to the bleeding, and the grim alarm, Excite the mortified man.

Ang. Near Birnam wood

[coming.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One; two; Why, then, 'tis time to do't:-Hell is murky! -Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him? Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?-What, will these hands ne'er be clean?-No more o'that, my lord, no more o'that: you mar all with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still! all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! [charged. Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct. Well, well, well,-
Gent. Pray God it be, sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

grave.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his Doct. Even so? Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, còme, come, come, give me your hand. What's done, cannot be undone: to bed, to bed, to bed. [exit Lady Macbeth.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?
Gent. Directly.

[deeds
Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural
Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minde
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets

Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother?

Len. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son, And many unrough youths, that even now Protest their first of manhood.

Ment. What does the tyrant?

Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies: Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hate him Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain, He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause Within the belt of rule.

Ang. Now does he feel

His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love; now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment. Who shall then blame
His pester'd senses to recoil, and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there?

Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd.
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

Len. Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam.

[exeunt, marching.

SCENE III. DUNSINANE. A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.

Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants. Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly 'Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, [all; I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know All mortal consequents, pronounc'd me thus: Fear not, Macbeth, no man, that's born of woman, Shall e'er have power on thee. Then fly, false And mingle with the English epicures: [thanes, The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear. Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon; Where got'st thou that goose look?

Serv. There is ten thousandMacb. Geese, villain?

Serv. Soldiers, sir.

Macb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lilly-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face? Serv. The English force, so please you.

Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton!-I am sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!--This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare
Seyton !—

Enter Seyton.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure? Macb. What news more?

[not.

SCENE IV.

COUNTRY NEAR DUNSINANE: A WOOD IN VIEW.

Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, Macduff, Menteth, Cathness, Angus, Lenox, Rosse, and Soldiers, marching.

Mal. Cousins, I hope, the days are near at hand, That chambers will be safe.

Ment. We doubt it nothing.

Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment. The wood of Birnam.

Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us.

Sold. It shall be done.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant 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 hath 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 colours, 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 forc'd 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:

it

Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:—
Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me:--
Come, sir, despatch:-If thou couldst, doctor, cast
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?-Hearest thou
of them?

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 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.

Macb. Thou wast born of woman.

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 look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

[striking him.

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 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 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.

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 hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
I sheath again undeeded. There thou should'st 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

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.

Mal. We have met with foes
That strike beside us.

Siw. Enter, sir, the castle. [exeunt; alarums. Re-enter Macbeth.

Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die

On my own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them.

Re-enter Macduff.

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn!

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.

Macd. I have no words,

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

Macb. Thou losest labour:

As easy may'st 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.

Macd. Despair thy charm;

And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd, Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.

Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells ine so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
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.

Macb. I'll 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 oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body

Francisco on his post. Enter to him Bernardo. Ber. WHO's there?

Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,

Fran. Bernardo.

Ber. He.

[self.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

[pole,
When yon same star, that's westward from the
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like: it harrows me with fear and
Ber. It would be spoke to.
[wonder.
Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of Together with that fair and warlike form [night, In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, Mar. It is offended. [speak.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. [pale: Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?
Hor. As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he th' ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,