ACT V
SCENE V Dunsinane. Within the castle.


 [Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum
 and colours]

MACBETH 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 forced with those that should be ours,
 We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
 And beat them backward home.

 [A cry of women within]

         What is that noise?

SEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord.

 [Exit]

MACBETH 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?

SEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH 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,
 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 comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Messenger Gracious my lord,
 I should report that which I say I saw,
 But know not how to do it.

MACBETH Well, say, sir.

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

MACBETH Liar and slave!

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

MACBETH 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 aweary 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]




 MACBETH


ACT V