I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
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, and dare not.
Seyton!

Enter Seyton.

Sey. What's your gracious pleasure?

Macb.

What news more? 30

Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.

Sey.

Give me my armour.

Macb. I'll put it on.

Doct.

Macb.

'Tis not needed yet.

Send out moe horses, skirr the country round;

Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?

Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Doct.

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

51

Macb. 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, dispatch. 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,
Would scour these English hence?

of them?

Hear'st thou

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

Macb.

Bring it after me.

60

and clear,

I will not be afraid of death and bane Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. Doct. [Aside] Were I from Dunsinane away

Profit again should hardly draw me here. [Exeunt.

Scene IV.

Country near Birnam wood.

Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, old Siward and his

Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox,
Ross, and Soldiers, marching.

Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand

Ment.

That chambers will be safe.

We doubt it nothing.

The wood of Birnam.

Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment.

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 of us.

Soldiers.

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: 10

For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd.

Siw.

Let our just censures

The time approaches,

Attend the true event, and put we on

Industrious soldiership.

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.

20

Scene V.

Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and

The

colours.

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
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.

[A cry of women within.

What is that noise?

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:

[Exit.

The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 10
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;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

Re-enter Seyton.

Wherefore was that cry?

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,
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 the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

20