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 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
Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.
Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; g.ve their
all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
[Exeunt. Alarums continued,
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 Am I to fear, or none.
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;That was not born of woman? Such a one
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 idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Enter Young Siward.
Yo. Siw. What is thy name?
Macb.
Thou'lt be afraid to hear it. Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
Macb.
Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce
a title
More hateful to mine ear.
Macb.
No, nor more fearful.
Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with y
sword
I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.
[They fight, and Young Siward is slain. Thou wast born of woman.
Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Mess. Gracious my lord,
I shall report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.
Liar, and slave!
[Striking him.
Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I зay, 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 dust for me as much.-
Macb.
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. [Ex.
Alarums. Enter Macduff.
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 hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
I sheath again undeeded. There thou should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited: Let me find him, fortune'
And more I beg not.
[Exit. Alarum.
Enter Malcolm and Old Siward.
Siw. This way, my lord;-the castle's gently
The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
out!-And little is to do.
The day almost itself professes yours,
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
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' en our back.
Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
SCENE VI-The same. A plain before the cas-On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes tle. Enter, with drums and colours, Malcolm. Do better upon them. Old Siward, Macduff, &c. and their army, with boughs.
Mal. Now near enough; your leavy 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.
Siro.
[They fight. Thou loosest labour:
(5) Reported with clamour.
As easy may'st thou the entrenchant air1
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.
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.
Macb. 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.
Macd. 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.
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
throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough.
[Exeunt, fighting.
Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drum and
colours, Malcolm, Old Siward, Rosse, Lenox,
Angus, Cathness, Menteth, and soldiers.
Mal. I would, the friends we miss were safe ar-
riv'd.
Siw. Some must go off: and yet, by these, I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
He only liv'd but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
Siw.
Rosse. Ay and brought off the field: your cause
of sorrow
Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
Ross. Aye, on the front.
Siw.
And that I'll spend for him.
Siw.
He's worth no more,
They say, he parted well, and paid his score:
So, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.
Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head on a pole.
Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: Behold,
where stands
The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,'
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,-
Hail, king of Scotland!
All.
King of Scotland, hai!!
[Flourish.
Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time,
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kins
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,-
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen;
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-This, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
So thanks to all at once, and to each one,
We will perform in measure, time, and place:
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
[Flourish. Exeunt.
This play is deservedly celebrated for the propriety of its fiction, and solemnity, grandeur, and variety of its action; but it has no nice discriminations of character; the events are too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, a:.d the course of the action necessarily determines the conduct of the agents.
The danger of ambition is well described; and I know not whether it may not be said, in defence of some parts which now seem improbable, that in Shakspeare's time it was necessary to warn credulity against vain and illusive predictions.
The passions are directed to their true end. Lady Why then, God's soldier be he! Macbeth is merely detested; and though the cou rage of Macbeth preserves some esteem, yet every reader rejoices at his fall.
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so his knell is knoll'd.
(1) The air, which cannot be cut. (2) Shuffle.
(3) The kingdom's wealth or ornament.
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