And mingle with the English epicures:

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon ;
Where gott'st thou that goose look?
SERV. There is ten thousand-

MACB.

SERV.

ΙΟ

MACB. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-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 dis-seat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fallen 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 !-

20

In Holinshed,

8 The English epicures. See Introduction. Macduff thus apostrophizes Malcolm: "O ye unhappy and miserable Scotishmen! Ye have one wicked and cursed tyrant that now reigneth over you-and this other is so replete with the inconstant behaviour and manifold vices of Englishmen, that he is unworthy to enjoy it."

IO Shall never sagg. 'Sink' or 'droop,' as in the translation

of Dubartas

"The horizon's ill-levelled circle wide,

Would sag too much on one or th' other side.' From this root comes the German 'seicht,' sunken or shallow, and Seiger,' for an hour-glass. A 'seggit' roof, too, means one which has sunk inward.

14 Over-red thy fear. Get some red to cover your paleness. 23 Into the sere (a substantive), 'into decay.' The emendation, 'my May of life,' first proposed by Johnson, has been supported by many editors. But could Macbeth ever have had 'a May of life'?

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. Give me my armour. SEY.

MACB. I'll put it on.

'Tis not needed yet.

Send out more horses, skir 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 diseas'd:
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.

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

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, 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,

40

50

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

35 Skir the country. 'Quatere agros,' to skim the country. So, to skirl' means to slide in provincial English.

54 Pull't off, I say. Either he finds fault with his armourer, or means, yet I might as well pull it off.'

The various readings are 'cyme,' an unknown

word, and 'cony.' 'Senna' is probably correct.

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exit. 60

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, 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.
"T is his main hope :
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.

Let our just censures

The time approaches,

Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

SIW.

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.

4 Hew him down a bough. A mark of the same kind of caution which dictated his trial of Macduff in Act iv. Sc. 3.

II Advantage to be given.

able opportunity.

12 More and less.

Wherever they can get a favour

Small and great have revolted from him.
Let us judge our foes after we have

14 Our just censures. beaten them.

18 What we owe.

profess to have.

What we really have and what we only

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:
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 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,

IO

Reinforced with those who should have

Bearding them as they do us.

A horrid narrative.

18 A time for such a word, (which now we cannot take into our hearts amid the press of war.)

19 To-morrow. It is remarkable how often, and with what wonderful variety of thought, Shakspere's mind, in the last years of his life, appears to have dwelt upon death. 'We in our folly,' says Macbeth, reckon upon a hereafter in which day follows day; but trace the days backward, and which of them. has not had a death on the day preceding it. So may our to-morrow be if we die to-day.' In a somewhat different spirit, the cowardly Claudio, in Measure for Measure (iii. 1), employs all the frightful material images of the Inferno-the imprisonment in ice, the being blown about by the viewless winds, the contrast between life and motion and the "kneaded clod" that man must become. Lastly, the courageous but reflective Hamlet, in his celebrated soliloquy, is repelled from suicide by the dread uncertainty as to what will be found in that "undiscovered country" whence no traveller returns.

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.-

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
MESS. Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

MACB.

Well, say, sir.

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 ;"—and 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,

40

And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.- 50 Ring the alarum-bell :-Blow wind! come wrack!

At least we 'll die with harness on our back. [Exeunt. This expression seems to give a personal point to the reflections on death.

24 A poor player.

42 I pull in resolution. Johnson conjectured 'pall.' But we have in Fletcher (Sea Voyage, iii. 1):

"All my spirits,

As if they had heard the passing bell go for me,
Pull in their powers and give me up to destiny."