The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare

Serv. There is ten thousand-
Macb. Geese, villain?

Serv. Soldiers, sir.

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?
Serv. 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 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, but dare
Seyton !-

Enter Seyton.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure?
Macb. What news more?

[not.

Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.

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,
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 of us.

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,
Both more and less hath 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

Mach. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be Industrious soldiership.

hack'd.

Give me my armour.

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

armour.

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 stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doct. Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

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 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 forc'd 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:

Mach. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of The time has been, my senses would have cool'd

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,
Would scour these English hence?-Hearest thou
of them?

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 slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.-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;

Doct. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation And all our yesterdays, have lighted fools

Makes us hear something.

Macb. Bring it after me.

I will not be afraid of death and bane,
"Till Dirnam forest come to Dunsinane. [exit.
Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here. [exit.

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.-

Enter a Messenger.

Macb. Thou wast born of woman.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. [exit.
Alarums. Enter Macduff.

Mess. Gracious my lord,

I shall report that which But know not how to do it. Macb. Well, say, sir.

say

I saw,

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

[striking him.

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 pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,
That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane;-aud 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.

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; alarum.
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; alarums. Re-enter Macbeth.

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

On my 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! [they fight.

Macb. Thou losest labour:
As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:
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 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.

Macb. I'll 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 oppos'd, being of no woman berns,
Yet I will try the last. Before my boy

I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; And damu'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough! [exeunt, fighting. 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 arriv'd.

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. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's He only liv'd but till he was a man; [debt: The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died.

Siw. Then he is dead?

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

Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
It hath no end.

Siw. Had he his hurts before?
Rosse. Ay, on the front.

Siw. Why then, God's soldier be he!
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 spent for him.

[flourish.

All. King of Scotland, hail!
Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time,
Before we reckon with your several loves, [men,
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,
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
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
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.

Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold your-What we two nights have seen.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio. Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. Hor. Most like: it harrows me with fear and Ber. It would be spoke to. [wonder. Mar. Speak to it, Horatio. Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of Together with that fair and warlike form [night, In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

[speak.

Hor. Stay; speak: speak, I charge thee, speak.

[exit Ghost.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. [pale: Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look 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 th' ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

1 He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.

"Tis strange.
jur [hour,
Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead
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,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subjects of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war?
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

Hor. That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lefty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in the sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine; and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't; which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.— -Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:
Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty? [know,
Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I, this morning,
Where we shall find him most convenient. [exeunt.

SCENE II. THE SAME. A ROOM OF STATE IN THE
SAME.

Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes,
Voltimand, Cornelius, Lords, and Attendants.
King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's

death

The memory be green and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,—
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-for all, our thanks

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The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson ..., Band 5