Macbeth by William Shakespeare (top ten books of all time .TXT) 📕

that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Seyton! Enter Seyton. Seyton What is your gracious pleasure? Macbeth What news more? Seyton All is confirm’d, my lord, which was reported. Macbeth

I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack’d.
Give me my armour.

Seyton ’Tis not needed yet. Macbeth

I’ll put it on.
Send out more horses; skirr the country round;
Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.
How does your patient, doctor?

Doctor

Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

Macbeth

Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doctor

Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

Macbeth

Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.
Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me.
Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.⁠—Pull’t off, I say.⁠—
What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?

Doctor

Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.

Macbeth

Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Doctor

Aside. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here. Exeunt.

Scene IV

Country near Birnam wood.

Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching. Malcolm

Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.

Menteith We doubt it nothing. Siward What wood is this before us? Menteith The wood of Birnam. Malcolm

Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear’t before him: thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Soldiers It shall be done. Siward

We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before’t.

Malcolm

’Tis his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrained things
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macduff

Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siward

The time approaches
That will with due decision make us know
What we shall say we have and what we owe.
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:
Towards which advance the war. Exeunt, marching.

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.

Scene VI

Dunsinane. Before the castle.

Drum and colours. Enter Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs. Malcolm

Now near enough: your leavy screens throw down,
And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
Shall, with my cousin, your right-noble son,
Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we
Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,
According to our order.

Siward

Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant’s power to-night,
Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

Macduff

Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. Exeunt.