It is the cry of women, my good lord.[Exit.]
MACBETH.
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 supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught’rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
[Re-enter Seyton.]
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON.
The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH.
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.—
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
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.
MESSENGER.
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
MACBETH.
Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER.
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
MACBETH.
Liar, and slave!
[Strikimg him.]
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 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.]
SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.
[Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, &c., and their Army, with boughs.]
MALCOLM.
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’s what else remains to do,
According to our order.
SIWARD.
Fare you well.—
Do 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 of blood and death.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the Plain.
[Alarums. Enter Macbeth.]
MACBETH.
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.]
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 in hell.
MACBETH.
My name’s Macbeth.
YOUNG SIWARD.
