Macduff. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,

Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. IO

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. Another part of the field

Alarums. Enter MACBETH

Macbeth. 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?

Am I to fear, or none.

Such a one

Enter YOUNG SIWARD

Young Siward. What is thy name?

Macbeth.

Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

Young Siward. No; though thou call'st thyself a

Young Siward. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with

my sword

I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

ΙΟ

[They fight, and young Siward is slain.

Macbeth.

Thou wast born of woman.

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd by man that 's of a woman born.

Alarums. Enter MACDUFF

[Exit.

Macduff. 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 kerns, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves: either thou,
Macbeth,

Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,

I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst
be;

By this great clatter, one of greatest note

Seems bruited: let me find him, fortune! And
More I beg not.

[Exit. Alarums.

Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD

Siward. 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;

18. staves, spears.

20

20. undeeded, unmarked by deeds.

20. shouldst, must. 21. note, importance, rank. 22. bruited, announced by the noise.

Macbeth. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die

On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the

gashes

Do better upon them.

Macduff.

Enter MACDUFF

Turn, hell-hound, turn!

Macbeth. Of all men else I have avoided thee:

But get thee back; my soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already.

Macduff.

I have no words:

My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain

Than terms can give thee out!

Macbeth.

[They fight.

Thou losest labour:

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed: 10

2. lives, living men. 9. intrenchant, invulnerable. 10. impress,

make a mark on.

MACBETH-II

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.

Macduff.

Despair thy charm,

And let the angel whom thou still hast served

Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb

Untimely ripp'd.

Macbeth. Accursed 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.

Macduff. Then yield thee, coward,

And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,

'Here may you see the tyrant.' Macbeth.

I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last: before my body
I throw my warlike shield; lay on, Macduff;

20

30

14. still, continually.

24. gaze, gazing32. the last, the last

14. angel, demon. stock. 26. underwrit, written underneath.

resource.

And damn'd be him that first cries 'Hold,

enough!'

Retreat.

Flourish.

[Exeunt, fighting. Alarums.

Enter, with drum and colours,

MALCOLM, old SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers

Malcolm. I would the friends we miss were safe

arrived.

Siward. Some must go off and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought,
Malcolm. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
Ross. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
He only lived but till he was a man ;

The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

Siward.

Then he is dead?

Ross. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of

sorrow

Must not be measured by his worth, for then

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.

36. go off, die. 46. before, in front.

40