Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd.

Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siw.

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.

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the Castle.

Enter, with drums and colors, 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.
Mach. 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't. I have supped full with horrors;
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;

1"-my fell of hair," my hairy part, my capilititium. Fell is skin, properly a sheep's skin with the wool on it.

1

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 com❜st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mess. Gracious my lord,

1 shall report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

Macb.

Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.

Macb.

Liar and slave! 2

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't 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,

1 "The last syllable of recorded time" seems to signify the utmost period fixed in the decrees of Heaven for the period of life. The record of futurity is indeed no accurate expression; but as we only know transactions past or present, the language of men affords no term for the volumes of prescience in which future events may be supposed to be written.

2 ["Striking him,"] says the stage direction in the margin of all the modern editions; but this stage direction is not in the old copies: it was first interpolated by Rowe, and is now omitted on the suggestion of the late Mr. Kemble. See his Essay on Macbeth and King Richard III. Lond. 1817. p. 111.

3 To cling, in the northern counties, signifies to shrivel, wither, or dry up. Clung-wood is wood of which the sap is entirely dried or spent. The same idea is well expressed by Pope in his version of the nineteenth Iliad, 166:

66

Clung with dry famine, and with toils declined."

I care not if thou dost for me as much.-
I pall 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 harness1 on our back. [Exeunt.

SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.

Enter, with drums and colors, MALCOLM, 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,

2

Lead our first battle; worthy Macduff, and we,
Shall take upon us what else remains to do,
According to our order.

Siw.

Fare you well.

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,

SCENE VII. The same.

Another Part of the Plain.

Enter MАСВЕТН.

Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bearlike, I must fight the course.1-What's he, That was not born of woman? Such a one

Am I to fear, or none.

Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter

My name's Macbeth.

Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a

title

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.

1 "But, bearlike, I must fight the course." This was a phrase at bearbaiting. "Also you shall see two ten dog courses at the great bear."Antipodes, by Brome.

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 shouldst be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited.1 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 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.

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

Macd.

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee; But get thee back; my soul is too much charged With blood of thine already.

Macd.

I have no words;

My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!

[They fight

Macb. Thou losest labor: As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air-2

1 Bruited is reported, noised abroad; from bruit (Fr.).
2 "The intrenchant air," the air which cannot be cut.