Macb. I'll put it on.

Send out more horses, skirr the country round ;'
Hang those that talk of fear.-Give me mine armour.--
How does your patient, doctor?

Doc. Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

Macb. Cure her of that:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doc. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.---
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff :-
Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me :-
Come, sir, despatch :-If thou could'st, 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?

Doc. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation

Makes us hear something.

Macb. Bring it after me.

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Doc. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

[Exit.

STEEVENS,

[1] To skirr, I believe, signifies to scour, to ride hastily.

[2] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. STEEVENS.

22

VOL. IV.

P.

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 have given him the revolt ;3

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.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt, marching.

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

[3] Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, signified opportunity. He shut up himself and his soldiers, (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him. JOHNSON.

[4] To one here is to possess. STEEVENS.

Macb. I'll put it on.

Send out more horses, skirr the country round ;'
Hang those that talk of fear.-Give me mine armour.--
How does your patient, doctor?

Doc. Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

Macb. Cure her of that:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doc. Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.--Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff :Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me :Come, sir, despatch :-If thou could'st, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease,

2

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?

Doc. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation

Makes us hear something.

Macb. Bring it after me.

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Doc. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

[Exit.

STEEVENS,

[1] To skirr, I believe, signifies to scour, to ride hastily.

[2] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. STEEVENS.

22

VOL. IV.

P.

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 have given him the revolt ;3
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.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt, marching.

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

[3] Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakespeare, signified opportunity. He shut up himself and his soldiers, (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him. JOHNSON.

[4] To one here is to possess. STEEVENS.

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:
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 supt 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 ideot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com❜st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mes. Gracious my lord,

I shall report that which I

But know not how to do it.

Macb. Well, say, sir.

say I

saw,

Mes. 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.

Mes. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so : Within this three mile may you see it coming;

[5] Recorded time seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of heaven for the period of life.

JOHNSON.

[6] The dust of death is an expression used in the 22d Psalm.

STEEVENS.