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.

8

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE V.

Dunsinane. Within the Castle.

Enter, with Drums and Colours, 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 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
[A cry within, of Women.

noise?

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: 1 have supp'd 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;

8

9

arbitrate:] i. e. determine.

fell of hair-] My hairy part, my capillitium. Fell is

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,

I 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 look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

Macb.

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 say, a moving grove.

Macb.

If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee:1 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

1

Till famine cling thee:] Clung, in the Northern counties,

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 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.

The same.

SCENE VII.

Another Part of the Plain.

Enter MAСВЕТН.

Macb. 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.

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

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.

Macb.

No, nor more fearful.

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my

sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

Macb.

[They fight, and young Siward is slain.

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.

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 sheathe again undeeded. There thou should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited.2 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.

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.

Mach. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.

I have no words,