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

K. MACB.

SERV.

Geese, villain?

Soldiers, sir.

K. MACB. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,
Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch ?a
Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
SERV. The English force, so please you.

K. MACB. Take thy face hence.

[Exit Servant.

Seyton!-I am sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push
Will chair 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!-

Enter SEYTON.

What news more?

30

SEY. What is your gracious pleasure?

K. MACB.

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

K. MACB. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd.—

Give me my armour.

SEY.

"T is not needed yet.

K. 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.

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

Not so sick, my lord,

Cure her of that:

K. MACB.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;

-patch] Fool. See note (), p. 520, Vol. I.

b Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now.] "Chair" is an emendation due to Dr. Percy, the old text having "cheer."

c

way of life-] The arguments for and against Johnson's proposal to read " of life," extend over four pages of the Variorum edition. It is unnecessary now to repeat them: most readers have learnt from Capell or Gifford that "way of life," the cursus vitæ of the Romans, is "a simple periphrasis for life." Those who are unacquainted with the latter's excellent note upon this phrase, should refer to it :Massinger's Works, Vol. IV. p. 309, ed. 1813. See also Florio's "World of Wordes," 1611, in voce "Guado," which "resolute John" explains to mean, among other things, "the way, course, or race of man's life."

:

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

DOCT.

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

:

K. 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?-Hear'st thou of them?
DOCT. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation

Makes us hear something.

K. MACB.

Bring it after me.—

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

60-Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. [Exeunt all except the Doctor. DOCT. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

SCENE IV.-Country near Dunsinane: a Wood in view.

[Exit.

Enter, with drum and colours, 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,

That chambers will be safe.

MENT.

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.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant

(*) Old text, Cyme.

■ Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff-] To avoid the disagreeable recurrence of the word "stuff," Steevens was led to read, "foul bosom," and he adduced in support of his emendation the line in "As You Like It," Act II. Sc. 6,

"Cleanse the foul body of the infected world."

Notwithstanding Malone's defence of the repetition, we are strongly inclined to believe

with Steevens that the line originally stood as he presents it, or thus,

or,

"Cleanse the clogg'd bosom of that perilous stuff," &c.;

"Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous load," &c.

Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure

Our setting down before 't. (1)

MAL.

'Tis his main hope: 70 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.

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

Srw.

Let our just censures

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.

SCENE V.-Dunsinane.

[Exeunt, marching.

Within the Castle.

Enter, with drum and colours, KING MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers. K. MACB. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;

The cry is still, They come.

Will laugh a siege to scorn:

Our castle's strength
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.

[Exit.

[A cry of women within.
What is that noise?
SEY. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
K. 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 slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

Re-enter SEYTON.

Wherefore was that cry?

SEY. The queen, my lord, is dead.

K. 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,

For where there is advantage to be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt ;]

Given, in the first line, is indubitably wrong, and was probably caught up of the compositor from the line which follows. Johnson suggested, "". - advantage to be gone;" &c. Steevens, "advantage to be got," &c.; and Mr. Singer, "— advantage to be gain'd,” &c. forc'd-] Strengthened. Mr. Collier's annotator reads, fare'd!

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
But know not how to do it.

K. MACB.

MESS. As I did stand my

say I saw,

Well, say, sir. watch upon the hill,

Liar, and slave!

I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought

The wood began to move.

K. MACB.

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.

K. MACB.

If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine clinga 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,

30

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.

SCENE VI.-The same. A Plain before the Castle.

[Exeunt.

Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c., and their Army with boughs.

MAL. Now, near enough, your leafy screens throw down, And show like those you are.-You, worthy uncle,

Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,

Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we

Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,

According to our order.

Till famine cling thee:] To cling is a north-country word, and means to starve, to shrivel, to shrink.

SIW.

Fare you well.

Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,

Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

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

Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. [Exeunt. Alarums. 10

SCENE VII.-The same. Another part of the Plain.

Enter KING MACBETH.

K. MACB. 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.

Thou 'lt be afraid to hear it.

Yo. Siw. What is thy name?

K. MACB.

Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell.

K. MACB.

My name's Macbeth.

Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.

K. MACB.
No, nor more fearful.
Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant! with

my sword

I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. [They fight, and young SIWARD is slain.

Thou wast born of woman.

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

Alarums. Enter MACDUFF.

MACD. 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 kernes, whose arms

Are hir'd 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.

Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD.

20

[Exit.

[Exit. Alarums.

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.