Cath. Well, march we on, To give obedience where 'tis truly owed: And with him pour we, in our country's purge, Len. Or so much as it needs To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam. [Exeunt marching. SCENE III.-DUNSINANE. A Room in the Castle. Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Mach. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all: Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Enter a Servant. The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott'st thou that goose look? Serv. There is ten thousand- Macb. Geese, villain? Serv. Soldiers, Sir. Mach. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear, Macb. Take thy face hence.-[Exit Serv.] Seyton!- When I behold-Seyton, I say!—This push And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.Seyton! 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; Doct. Therein the patient Must minister to himself. Mach. Throw physic to the dogs,-I'll none of it.Come, put mine armour 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.What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, [them? 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. [Exit. SCENE IV.-Country near DUNSINANE: a Wood in view. Enter, with drum and colours, 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 SCENE V.-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 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. As life were in 't: I have supp'd full with horrors; Mach. She should have died hereafter; Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. [Striking him. Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so: Within this three mile you may see it coming; I say, a moving grove. Macb. If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive I care not if thou dost for me as much. I pull in resolution; and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, 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 Macd. That way the noise is.-Tyrant, shew 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 hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth, I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; [Exit. Alarum. I bear a charmed life, which must not yield Macd. Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd. Macb. Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow'd my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.-I'll not fight with thee. And live to be the show and gaze o' the time. Macb. I'll not yield To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; 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 arrived. 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. The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd Siw. Then he is dead? Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of Must not be measured by his worth, for then [sorrow It hath no end. Siw Had he his hurts before? Rosse. Ay, on the front. Siw. Why then, God's soldier be hel Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: 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: Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head on a pole. All. King of Scotland, hail! [Flourish. Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time, And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,- [Flourish. Exzeu nt. Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy; Ber. Sit down awhile; And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story, What we two nights have seen. Hor. Well, sit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form, In which the majesty of buried Denmark Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak. Mar. It is offended. Ber. See! it stalks away. Hor. Stay; speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! [Exit Ghost. Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble, and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you of it? Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible and true avouch Of mine own eyes. Mar. Is it not like the king? Hor. As thou art to thyself: Such was the very armour he had on When he the ambitious Norway combated; So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle, He smote the sledded Polack on the ice. 'Tis strange. Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not; But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Any why such daily cast of brazen cannon, Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week: Hor. Than can I; At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands To the inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart, And carriage of the article designed, His fell to Hamlet: now, Sir, young Fortinbras, Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there, The source of this our watch; and the chief head We do it wrong, being so majestical, Exit Ghost. Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the Castle. Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd To our most valiant brother.--So much for him.- Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty. The hand more instrumental to the mouth, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave, By laboursome petition; and, at last, Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent: I do beseech you, give him leave to go. [kind. King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour où, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st 'tis common,-all that live must die, Ham. Ay, Madam, it is common. Queen. If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee? Ham. Seems, Madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, To do obsequious sorrow; but to perséver Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief: A heart unfortified, or mind impatient; Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven, Than that which dearest father bears his son, Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet; [Exeunt KING, QUEEN, Lords, dc., POL, and LAERTES. Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature By what it fed on; and yet, within a month,-- Let me not think on 't,-Frailty, thy name is woman !--- With which she follow'd my poor father's body, O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Than I to Hercules: within a month; Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married:-O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot come to, good; But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue! Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELI US. Ham. I am glad to see you well: Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant Mar. My good lord,- Ham. I am very glad to see you.-Good even, Sir.- We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. I think it was to see my mother's wedding. Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!- Hor. Where, My lord? Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio. Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. Ham. Saw who? Hor. My lord, the king your father. Ham. The king my father! Hor. Season your admiration for a while Ham. For God's love, let me hear. Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, In the dead waist and middle of the night, This to me Appears before them, and with solemn march Ham. But where was this? Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd Ham. Did you not speak to it? Hor. My lord, I did; But answer made it none: yet once, methought, It lifted up its head, and did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak: But, even then, the morning cock crew loud: And vanish'd from our sight. Ham. 'Tis very strange. Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true: And we did think it writ down in our duty To let you know of it. Ham. Indeed, indeed, Sirs, but this troubles ine. Hold you the watch to-night? All. We do, my lord. Ham. Arm'd, say you? All. Arm'd, my lord. Ham. From top to toe? All. My lord, from head to foot. Ham. Then saw you not His face? Hor. O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up. Ham. What, look'd he frowningly? Hor. A countenance more In sorrow than in anger. Ham. Pale, or red? Hor. Nay, very pale. Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you? Hor. Most constantly. Ham. I would I had been there. Hor. It would have much amaz'd you. Ham. If it assume my noble father's person, All. Our duty to your honour. [Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! |