Macbeth (16 page)

MENTEITH
    The wood of Birnam.

MALCOLM
    Let every soldier hew him down a bough
        And bear’t before him: thereby shall we
shadow
⁷
        The numbers of our
host
⁸
and make
discovery
        
Err
⁹
in report of us.

A SOLDIER
    It shall be done.

SIWARD
    We learn no other but the confident tyrant
        
Keeps
¹²
still in Dunsinane and will endure
        Our
setting down
¹³
before’t.

MALCOLM
    ’Tis his main hope:
        For
where there is advantage to be given
¹⁵
,
        Both
more and less have given him the revolt
¹⁶
,
        And none serve with him but constrainèd things
        Whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFF
    
Let our just censures
        Attend the true event
¹⁹
, and put we on
        Industrious soldiership.

SIWARD
    The time approaches
        That will with
due
²³
decision make us know
        What we shall say we have and what we
owe
²⁴
.
        
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
        But certain issue strokes must arbitrate
²⁵
:
        Towards which advance the war.
Exeunt, marching

Location: Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane
  

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
⁴
eat them up.
        Were they not
forced
⁵
with those that should be ours,
        We might have met them
dareful
⁶
, beard to beard,
        And beat them backward home.

A cry within of women

                    What is that noise?

SEYTON
    It is the cry of women, my good lord.
        
Exit or goes to the door

MACBETH
    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
¹¹
        Would at a dismal
treatise
¹²
rouse and stir
        
As
¹³
life were in’t. I have
supped full
with horrors:
        
Direness
¹⁴
, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
        Cannot once
start me
¹⁵
.—
Seyton re-enters or comes forward

    Wherefore was that cry?
To Seyton

SEYTON
    The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH
    
She should have died hereafter
¹⁷
:
        There would have been a time for
such a word
¹⁸
.
        Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
        Creeps in this
petty
²⁰
pace from day to day
        To the last
syllable
²¹
of
recorded
time:
        And all our yesterdays have
lighted
²²
fools
        The way to
dusty
²³
death. Out, out, brief candle.
        Life’s but a walking
shadow
²⁴
, a
poor
player
        That struts and
frets
²⁵
his hour upon the stage
        And then is heard no more. It is a tale
        Told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury
²⁷
,
        Signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger

    Thou com’st to use thy tongue:
thy story quickly
²⁹
.

MESSENGER
    Gracious my lord,
        I should report that which I say I saw,
        But know not how to do’t.

MACBETH
    Well, say, sir.

MESSENGER
    As I
did stand my watch
³⁴
upon the hill,
        I looked 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 shall thou hang alive
        Till famine
cling
⁴³
thee: if thy speech be
sooth
,
        I care not if thou
dost for me as much
⁴⁴
.—
        I
pull in resolution
⁴⁵
, and begin
        To doubt th’equivocation of the
fiend
⁴⁶
        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
⁵⁰
does appear,
        There is
nor flying hence nor tarrying here
⁵¹
.—
        I
’gin
⁵²
to be aweary of the sun,
        And wish
th’estate
⁵³
o’th’world were now undone.—
        Ring the alarum bell! Blow wind, come
wrack
⁵⁴
,
        At least we’ll die with
harness
⁵⁵
on our back.
Exeunt

Location: outside Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane
  

Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff and their army, with boughs

MALCOLM
    Now near enough. Your leafy screens throw down,
        And
show
²
like those you are. You, worthy
uncle
,
        Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
        Lead our first
battle
⁴
. Worthy Macduff and we
        Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,
        According to our
order
⁶
.

SIWARD
    Fare you well.
        
Do
⁸
we but find the tyrant’s
power
tonight,
        Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.

MACDUFF
    Make all our trumpets speak: give them all breath,
        Those clamorous
harbingers
¹¹
of blood and death.
        
Exeunt. Alarums continued

Enter Macbeth

MACBETH
    They have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly,
        But
bear-like
²
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
⁸
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, abhorrèd tyrant: with my sword
        I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.

Fight and Young Siward slain

MACBETH
    Thou wast born of woman.
        But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
        Brandished 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
²¹
, whose arms
        Are hired to bear their
staves
²²
: either thou, Macbeth,
        Or else my sword with an unbattered edge
        I sheathe again
undeeded
²⁴
. There thou shouldst be:
        By this great clatter, one of greatest
note
²⁵
        Seems
bruited
²⁶
. 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 rendered
²⁸
:
        The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight,
        The noble thanes do bravely in the war,
        
The day almost itself professes yours
³¹
,
        And little is to do.

MALCOLM
    We have met with foes that
strike beside us
³³
.

SIWARD
    Enter, sir, the castle.
Exeunt. Alarum

Enter Macbeth

MACBETH
    Why should I
play the Roman fool and die
        On mine own sword
³⁵
? Whiles I see
lives
³⁶
, the gashes
        Do better upon them.

Enter Macduff

MACDUFF
    Turn, hell-hound, turn.

MACBETH
    Of all
men else
³⁹
I have avoided thee.
        But get thee back: my soul is too much
charged
⁴⁰
        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
⁴⁴
.
Fight. Alarum

MACBETH
    Thou
losest labour
⁴⁵
.
        As easy mayst thou the
intrenchant
⁴⁶
air
        With thy
keen
⁴⁷
sword
impress
as make me bleed.
        Let fall thy blade on vulnerable
crests
⁴⁸
:
        I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield
        To one of woman born.

MACDUFF
    Despair thy charm,
        And let the
angel
⁵²
whom thou still hast served
        Tell thee: Macduff was from his mother’s womb
        
Untimely
⁵⁴
ripped.

MACBETH
    Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
        For it hath
cowed
⁵⁶
my
better part of man
.
        And be these
juggling
⁵⁷
fiends no more believed
        That
palter
⁵⁸
with us in a double sense,
        That
keep the word of promise to our ear
        And break it to our hope
⁵⁹
. I’ll not fight with thee.

MACDUFF
    Then yield thee, coward,
        And live to be the
show and gaze o’th’time
⁶²
:
        We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
        
Painted upon a pole
⁶⁴
, 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
⁶⁸
’s curse.
        Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
        And thou
opposed
⁷⁰
, being of no woman born,
        Yet I will
try the last
⁷¹
. Before my body
        I throw my warlike shield.
Lay on
⁷²
, Macduff,
        And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’
        
Exeunt fighting. Alarums

Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain

[
Exit Macduff with Macbeth’s body
]

Retreat and flourish. Enter, with Drum and Colours, Malcolm, Siward, Ross, Thanes and Soldiers

MALCOLM
    I
would
⁷⁴
the friends we miss were safe arrived.

SIWARD
    Some must
go off
⁷⁵
: 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
⁷⁸
:
To Siward

        He only lived but till he was a man,
        The which no sooner had his
prowess
⁸⁰
confirmed
        In the
unshrinking station
⁸¹
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
⁸⁷
?