_Enter_ MACBETH, SEYTON, _and_ Soldiers, _with drum and colours_.[4583]
_Macb._ Hang out our banners on the outward walls;[4584]
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,[4585] 5
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home. [_A cry of women within._[4586]
What is that noise?
_Sey._ It is the cry of women, my good lord. [_Exit._[4587]
_Macb._ I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd[4588] 10
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;[4589]
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
_Re-enter_ SEYTON.
Wherefore was that cry?[4590] 15
_Scy._ The queen, my lord, is dead.[4591]
_Macb._ She should have died hereafter;[4592]
There would have been a time for such a word.[4592][4593]
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,[4594] 20
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools[4595]
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle![4596]
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player[4597]
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage[4597] 25
And then is heard no more: it is a tale[4597]
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
_Enter a_ Messenger.
Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
_Mess._ Gracious my lord,[4598] 30
I should report that which I say I saw,[4599]
But know not how to do it.[4600]
_Macb._ Well, say, sir.
_Mess._ As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,[4601]
The wood began to move.
_Macb._ Liar and slave![4602] 35
_Mess._ Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;[4603]
I say, a moving grove.
_Macb._ If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,[4604]
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,[4605] 40
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin[4606]
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood[4601]
Do come to Dunsinane;' and now a wood 45
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out![4607]
If this which he avouches does appear,[4608]
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.[4608][4609]
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,[4608][4610]
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.[4608][4611] 50
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack![4612]
At least we'll die with harness on our back. [_Exeunt._