Himself best knows: but strangely visited people,|
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace.

Enter Rosse.

Macd. See, who comes here?

Mal. My countryman ; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Macd. What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief”,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind, that's honest,

5 But in it shares some woes; though the main part Pertains to you alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, 10 Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Hum! I guess at it.

[babes, Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,

Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes re- 15 Were, on the quarry' of these murder'd deer

The means that make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, amen.

[move

Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
Rosse. No; they were all at peace when I did

leave them.

[goes it
Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How
Rosse. When came hitherto transport the tidings,
Which I bave heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy tellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot :
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To do their dire distresses.

Mal. Be it their comfort,

We are coming hither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men;
An older, and a better soldier, none
That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. 'Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them.

20

To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful beaven!

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence!

|25|My wife kill'd too?

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted:

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

30 Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all?-Oh, hell-kite!—All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop'?

35

40

45

Mal. Dispute it like a man.
Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Macd. Oh, I could play the woman with inime
[ven,
And braggart with my tongue!--But, gentle hea-
Cut short all intermission; front to front,
50 Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself:
Within my sword's length set him; if he'scape,
Heaven, forgive him too!

Mal. This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
55 Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above [may;
Put on their instruments". Receive what cheer you
The night is long, that never finds the day. [Èxe.

1 Meaning the coin called an angel, the value of which was ten shillings. i. e. common. * Το doff is to do off, to put off. The folio reads latch them, and perhaps rightly, as to latch (in the North country dialect) signifies the same as to catch. A grief that hath a single owner. • Quarry is a term used both in hunting and falconry, and in both sports it means either the game that is pursued, or the game after it is killed. Swoop is the descent of a bird of prey on his game. i. e. contend with your sorrow like a inan. i. e. all pause. i. e. encourage us their instruments

against the tyrant.

АСТ

ACT
С T V.

201

Enter Lady Macbeth with a Taper. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; 25 stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her; she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.
Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural
Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
30 More needs she the divine, than the physician.--
God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her:-So, good-night:
My mind she has mated', and amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her 35 continue in this a quarter of an hour.

40

Lady. Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!-One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do't;-Hell is murky'!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afraid? what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have 45 thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady. The thane of File had a wife; Where is she now?-What, will these hands ne'er be 50 clean?-No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

1 Mr. Steevens with great acuteness observes on this passage, that Lady Macbeth is acting over in a dream the business of the murder of Duncan, and encouraging her husband as when awake; and certainly imagines herself here talking to Macbeth, who (she supposes) has just said, Hell is murky, (t. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice; Hell is murky!-Fie, fie, my lord, fie! a soldier and afraid? i. e. astonished, confounded. By the mortified man, is meant, a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Ascetic. i. e. smooth-faced, unbearded youths.

Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.
Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly 30
'Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, [all;
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?|
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consciences, have pronounc'd me thus:
Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman, 35
Shall e'er have power upon thee.-Then fly, false
And mingle with the English epicures: [thanes,
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Macb. Go,prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lilly-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch*?
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to fear'. What soldiers whey-face: 50
Ser. The English force, so please you.
Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton!-I am
sick at heart.

When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my May 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,

1i. e. physician. 2 To sag, or swag, is to sink down by its own weight, or by an overload. 'Loon signifies a base fellow, i. e. fool. The meaning is, they infect others who see them with cowardice. "Sear is dry. 'To skirr signifies to scour, to ride hastily, water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine.

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'

I

Both more and less' have given him the revolt;

5

And none serve with him but constrained things,

Mes. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming:
I say, a moving grove.

Much. 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 pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,

10 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 no flying hence, nor tarrying here.
151 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, [done.-
And wish the estate o' the world were now un-
Ring the alarum bell:-Blow, wind! come, wrack}
At least we'll die with harness on our back. [Exe.
SCENE VI.

20 Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward,
Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.
Mal. Now near enough; your leavy screens
throw down,

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 forc'd with those that should be ours, 25
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.
Mach. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
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 supt 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 dy'd 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 ideot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-

2

30

35

But, bear-like, I must fight the course.-What's he, 40 That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none.

451

50

Yo. Siw. The devil himselt could not pronounce More hateful to mine ear.

Macb. No, nor more fearful.

[sword

Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

[Fight; and Young Siward is slain. Macb. Thou wast born of woman.-

55 But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. [Exit. Alarums. Enter Macduff.

Alacd. That way the noise is:-Tyrant, shew thy face;

i. e. deter

That is, opportunity to be gone. More and less is the same with greater and less. mine. My hairy part, my capillitium. Fell is skin. Recorded is probably here used for recording, or recordable. Clung, in the northern counties, signifies any thing that is shrivelled or shrunk up. By famine, the intestines are, as it were, stuck together. To be clem'd is a Staffordshire expression signifying to be starv'd. To cling likewise siguities to compress, to embrace.

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 hir'd to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
I sheath again undeeded. There thou should'st be;
By this great clatter, one of greatest note
Seems bruited'; Let me find him, fortune! and
More I beg not.
[Exit. Alurum.
Enter Malcolm and Old Siward.
Siw. 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;
The day almost itself professes yours,

And little is to do.

Mal. We have met with foes

That strike beside us.

Siw. Enter, sir, the castle. [Exeunt. Alarum.
Re-enter Macbeth.

Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

Re-enter Macduff.

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.

Macd. I have no words,

My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out! [Fight. Alarum.
Macb. Thou losest labour:

As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air2

Re-enter Macduff with Macbeth's head.

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: 35 Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art; Behold,

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

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

Macd. Despair thy charm;

And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd,
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

Macb. 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 believ'd,
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.
Macd. Then yield thee, coward,

And live to be the shew and gaze o' the time.
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole; and under-writ,

Here may you see the tyrant.

Macb. I will not yield,

where stands

The usurper's cursed head: the time is free ;
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl',
That speak my salutation in their minds;

40 Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,-
Hail, king of Scotland!

[Fourish.

All. Hail, king of Scotland!
Mal. We shall not spend a large expence of time,
Before we reckon with your several loves, men,
45 And make us even with you. My thanes and kins-
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,-
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
50 That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen;
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-This, and what needful else

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, 55 That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,

And to be baited with the rabble's curse.

Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last: Before my body

To bruit is to report with clamour; to noise.

We will perform in measure, time, and place;
So thanks to all at once, and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
[Flourish. Exeunt.

2 i. e. air which cannot be cut. 3 i. e, that
i. e. thy kingdoni's wealth.

shuffle with ambiguous expressions, *See note, p. 367.