Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?1
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 lived long enough: my way of life
Is fallen into the scar, 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, and dare not.
Seyton!

Enter SEYTON.

Sey. What's your gracious pleasure?

Macb.

What news more?

Sey. All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked,

Give me my armour.

Sey.

Macb. I'll put it on.

"Tis not needed yet.

Send out more horses, skirr2 the country round;

Hang those that talk of fear.

How does you patient, doctor?

Doct.

Give me mine armour.

Not so sick, my lord,

Cure her of that:

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

Macb.

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

Doct.

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

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:-
I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exit.

Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

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 it before him; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure

Our setting down before it.

Mal.
'Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less1 have given him the revolt ;
And none serve with him but constrainèd things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

Let our just censures

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.

1 All ranks, higher and lower.

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 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 fell1 of hair
Would, at a dismal treatise, rouse, and stir

As life were in it: I have supped full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous 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 comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mess. Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I
But know not how to do it.

Macb.

say I saw,

Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

1 Fell of hair;- the skin on which the hair of the head grows.

I looked toward Birnam, and, anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

Macb.

Liar, and slave! [Striking him. Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if it 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 in2 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 of 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 Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c., and their Army, with Boughs.

Mal. 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 us what else remains to do,

According to our order.

well.. you

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.

1 Catch hold of.

[Exeunt. Alarums continued.

resolution; a metaphor taken from a

2 Pull in (check the speed of) my running horse.

SCENE VII. The same.

Another part of the Plain.

Enter MACBETH.

Macb. 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.

Yo. Siw. What is thy name?

Macb.

My name's Macbeth.

Thou'lt be afeard to hear it;

Yo. Siw. Thou could'st not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.

Macb.

No, nor more fearful.

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorrèd 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 undeeded. There thou should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Let me find him, fortune!

Seems bruited.

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.

1 Reported.