Dunsinane.
Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers with drums and colours.
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 lye,
'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 rouze 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;
-- 466 --
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools(45) note
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!
Enter a Messenger.
Thou com'st to use thy tongue: thy story quickly.
Mes.
My gracious lord,
I should report That which, I say, I saw,
But know not how to do't.
Macb.
Well, say it, Sir.
Mes.
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.
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.
-- 467 --
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 th' 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, do's appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here,
I 'gin to be a weary of the Sun;(46) note
And wish, the state o'th' world were now undone.
Ring the alarum Bell; blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least, we'll die with harness on our back.
[Exeunt.
Lewis Theobald [1733], The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected; With notes, Explanatory and Critical; By Mr. Theobald (Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch [and] J. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11201].
