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[The country near Dunsinane]
Drum and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, and Soldiers
Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, | |
| His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. | |
| Revenges burn in them; for their dear 1 causes | |
| Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm | 4 |
| Excite the mortified man. 2 | |
| Ang. Near Birnam wood | |
| Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming. | |
| Caith. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother? | 8 |
| Len. For certain, sir, he is not; I have a file 3 | |
| Of all the gentry. There is Siward’s son, | |
| And many unrough 4 youths that even now | |
| Protest 5 their first of manhood. | 12 |
| Ment. What does the tyrant? | |
| Caith. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies. | |
| Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him | |
| Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain, | 16 |
| He cannot buckle his distemper’d cause 6 | |
| Within the belt of rule. | |
| Ang. Now does he feel | |
| His secret murders sticking on his hands; | 20 |
| Now minutely 7 revolts upbraid his faith-breach; | |
| Those he commands move only in command, | |
| Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title | |
| Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe | 24 |
| Upon a dwarfish thief. | |
| Ment. Who then shall blame | |
| His pester’d 8 senses to recoil and start, | |
| When all that is within him does condemn | 28 |
| Itself for being there? | |
| Caith. Well, march we on | |
| To give obedience where ’tis truly ow’d. | |
| Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal, | 32 |
| And with him pour we in our country’s purge | |
| Each drop of us. | |
| Len. Or so much as it needs | |
| To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds. | 36 |
| Make we our march towards Birnam. Exeunt, marching. | |
