More hateful to mine ear.MACBETH.
No, nor more fearful.
YOUNG SIWARD.
Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.
[They fight, and young Seward is slain.]
MACBETH.
Thou wast born of woman.—
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish’d 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, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter’d edge,
I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
And more I beg not.
[Exit. Alarums.]
[Enter Malcolm and old Siward.]
SIWARD.
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.
MALCOLM.
We have met with foes
That strike beside us.
SIWARD.
Enter, sir, the castle.
[Exeunt. Alarums.]
SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.
[Enter Macbeth.]
MACBETH.
Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.
[Enter Macduff.]
MACDUFF.
Turn, hellhound, turn!
MACBETH.
Of all men else I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; my soul is too much charg’d
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!
[They fight.]
MACBETH.
Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst 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.
MACDUFF.
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.
MACBETH.
Accursed be that tongue that tells me 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.
MACDUFF.
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.”
MACBETH.
I will 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
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
[Exeunt fighting.]
[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old
Siward, Ross, Lennox, Angus, Caithness, Menteith, and Soldiers.
MALCOLM.
I would the friends we miss were safe arriv’d.
SIWARD.
Some must go off; and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM.
