Chapter ACT V · SCENE VDunsinane. Within the castle던시네인. 성안

[Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers.]

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 forc'd 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 slaught'rous 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 com'st 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!

[Strikimg him.]

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 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.]