Dunsinane. Within the Castle. | |
| |
Enter, with drum 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 | 4 |
| Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie | |
| Till famine and the ague eat them up; | |
| Were they not fore’d with those that should be ours, | |
| We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, | 8 |
| And beat them backward home. [A cry of women within. | |
| What is that noise? | |
| Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. [Exit. | |
| Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears. | 12 |
| 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 supp’d full with horrors; | 16 |
| Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, | |
| Cannot once start me. | |
| |
Re-Enter SEYTON. | |
| Wherefore was that cry? | 20 |
| 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, | 24 |
| 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! | 28 |
| 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, | 32 |
| Signifying nothing. | |
| |
Enter a Messenger. | |
| Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. | |
| Mess. Gracious my lord, | 36 |
| I should 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, | 40 |
| I look’d towards Birnam, and anon, methought, | |
| The wood began to move. | |
| Macb. Liar and slave! | |
| Mess. Let me endure your wrath if’t be not so: | 44 |
| 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, | 48 |
| Till famine cling thee; 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 | 52 |
| 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, | 56 |
| There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here. | |
| I’gin to be aweary of the sun, | |
| And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone. | |
| Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! | 60 |
| At least we’ll die with harness on our back. [Exeunt. | |
