Enter SEYTON.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure ?
Macb.

What news more ? Sey. All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be

hacked. Give me my armor. Sey.

'Tis not needed yet. Macb. I'll put it on. Send out more horses, skirr the country round; Hang those that talk of fear.—Give me mine armor. How does your patient, doctor ? Doct.

Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
Macb.

Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ;
And, with some sweet, oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doct.

Therein the patient Must minister to himself.

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.Come, put mine armor on; give me my staff ;Seyton, send out.—Doctor, the thanes fly from me; Come, sir, despatch.—If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.—Pull’t off

, I say.

I What rhubarb, senna,? or what purgative drug, Would scour these English hence?—Hearest thou of

Doct. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.
Macb.

Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exit. Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Country near Dunsinane; a Wood in

view.

Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, Old SIWARD

and his Son, MACDUFF, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOx, Rosse, and Soldiers, marching.

Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.
Ment.

We doubt it nothing.
Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment.

The wood of Birnam.
Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, ,
And bear't before him ; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report
Sold.

It shall be done. Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure Our setting down before't. Mal.

'Tis his main hope ; For where there is advantage to be given,

of us.

2

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

Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.
Siw.

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, Sexton,

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.

Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have cooled
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 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 ;

the stage,

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
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 looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
Macb..

Liar and slave!
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,

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 harness' 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,
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.

2 The first folio reads upon's.

1 Harness, armor. VOL. III.

33