Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie,
Tili 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
As life were in't I have supt 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;

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;5
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 ideot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mes. Gracious my lord,

I shall report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

Macb. Well, say, sir.

Mes. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

[Striking him.

Mes. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming;

[5] Recorded time seems to signify the time fixed in the decrees of heaven for the period of life. JOHNS.

[6] The dust of death is an expression used in the 22d Psalm.

STEEV.

I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee:7 if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou do'st 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.

SCENE VI.

[Exeunt.

The same.
A Plain before the Castle. Enter, with Drums and
Colours, 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,

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,

Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

[Exeunt.

Alarums continued.

[7] Clung, in the Northern counties, signifies any thing that is shrivelled, or shrunk up. To cling likewise signifies, to gripe, to compress, to embrace.

STEEV.

The same.

SCENE VII.

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. 8-What's he, That was not born of woman? Such a one

Am I to fear, or none.

Enter young SIWARD.

Yo. Siw. What is thy name?

Macb. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

Yo. Siw. No; tho' thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.

Macb. My name's Macbeth.

Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear.

I'll

Macb. No, nor more fearful.

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword prove the lie thou speak'st.

[They fight, and young SIWARD is slain. Macb. Thou wast born of woman.-.

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd 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.
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: 9 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 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.

[8] A phrase taken from bear-baiting.

STEEV.

[9] From bruit, Fr. To bruit is to report with clamour; to noise. STEER

Mal. We have met with foes

That strike beside us.

Siw. Enter, sir, the castle.

[Exeunt. Alarum.

Re-enter MACBETH.

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

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd 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!

Macb. Thou losest labour :

As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air2

[They fight.

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed :
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

I bear a charmed life, 3 which must not yield
To one of woman born.

Macd. 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 ;4
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.

Macb. I'll not yield,

[1] Alluding. nerhaps, to the suicide of Cato Uticensis. [2] That is, are, which cannot be cut. JOHNS.

STEEV.

[3] In the days of chivalry, the champion's arms being ceremoniously blessed,ch took an oath that he used no charmed weapons. Macbeth, according to th law of arms, or perhaps only in allusion to this custom, tells Macdu of the security he had in the prediction of the spirit. UPTON. [4] That shuffle with ambiguous expressions.

JOHNS.

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.

Re-enter fighting, and MACBETH is slain.

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 arriv'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. Then he is dead?

Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of

sorrow

Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then

It hath no end.

Siw. Had he his hurts before?

Rosse. Ay, on the front.

Siw. Why then, God's soldier be he!

Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

I would not wish them to a fairer death:5

And so his knell is knoll'd.

Mal. He's worth more sorrow,

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.

[5] This incident is thus related from Henry of Huntingdon, by Camden, in his Remains, from which our author probably copied it :-When Siward, the martial earl of Northumberland, understood that his son, whom he had sent in service against the Scotchmen, was slain, he demanded whether his wounds were in the fore part or hinder part of his body. When it was answered, in the fore part, he replied, "I am right glad; neither wish I any other death to me or mine." JOHNS.