University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

A Court in Macbeth's Castle, at Dunsinane.
Flourish. Enter Macbeth, Seyton, Officers, and Soldiers.
Mac.
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 within, of Women.
What is that noise!

Sey.
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Exit Seyton.

Mac.
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 supt full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
Re-enter Seyton.
Wherefore was that cry?

Sey.
The Queen, my Lord, is dead.

Mac.
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 ideot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.—
Enter an Officer.
Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

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

Mac.
Well, say, Sir.

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

Mac.
Liar, and slave!

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

Mac.
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 do'st 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.

Flourish. Exeunt