Macbeth - Act 5 - Scene 5

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

Related

Macbeth 8860340060121670688

Weakly Top

Monthly Top

item