Macbeth/Source/Act V

SCENE I. Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.
[Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.]

DOCTOR.
 * I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no
 * truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her
 * rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her
 * closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it,
 * afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this
 * while in a most fast sleep.

DOCTOR.
 * A great perturbation in nature,—to receive at once the
 * benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching— In this
 * slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual
 * performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCTOR.
 * You may to me; and 'tis most meet you should.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my
 * speech. Lo you, here she comes!

[Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.]


 * This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe
 * her; stand close.

DOCTOR.
 * How came she by that light?

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her
 * command.

DOCTOR.
 * You see, her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Ay, but their sense is shut.

DOCTOR.
 * What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her
 * hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETH.
 * Yet here's a spot.

DOCTOR.
 * Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to
 * satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

LADY MACBETH.
 * Out, damned spot! out, I say!— One; two; why, then 'tis
 * time to do't ;—Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier,
 * and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call
 * our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
 * have had so much blood in him?

DOCTOR.
 * Do you mark that?

LADY MACBETH.
 * The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?—What,
 * will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no
 * more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

DOCTOR.
 * Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that:
 * heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETH.
 * Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes
 * of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

DOCTOR.
 * What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
 * dignity of the whole body.

DOCTOR.
 * Well, well, well,—

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Pray God it be, sir.

DOCTOR.
 * This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those
 * which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in
 * their beds.

LADY MACBETH.
 * Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
 * pale:—I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come
 * out on's grave.

DOCTOR.
 * Even so?

LADY MACBETH.
 * To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate: come, come, come,
 * come, give me your hand: what's done cannot be undone: to bed, to
 * bed, to bed.

[Exit.]

DOCTOR.
 * Will she go now to bed?

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Directly.

DOCTOR.
 * Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
 * Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
 * To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
 * More needs she the divine than the physician.—
 * God, God, forgive us all!—Look after her;
 * Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
 * And still keep eyes upon her:—so, good-night:
 * My mind she has mated, and amaz'd my sight:
 * I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMAN.
 * Good-night, good doctor.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane.
[Drum and colours. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers.]

MENTEITH.
 * The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
 * His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
 * Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
 * Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
 * Excite the mortified man.

ANGUS.
 * Near Birnam wood
 * Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.

CAITHNESS.
 * Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

LENNOX.
 * For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
 * Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son
 * And many unrough youths, that even now
 * Protest their first of manhood.

MENTEITH.
 * What does the tyrant?

CAITHNESS.
 * Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
 * Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
 * Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
 * He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
 * Within the belt of rule.

ANGUS.
 * Now does he feel
 * His secret murders sticking on his hands;
 * Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
 * Those he commands move only in command,
 * Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
 * Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
 * Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENTEITH.
 * Who, then, shall blame
 * His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
 * When all that is within him does condemn
 * Itself for being there?

CAITHNESS.
 * Well, march we on,
 * To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
 * Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal;
 * And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
 * Each drop of us.

LENNOX.
 * Or so much as it needs,
 * To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.
 * Make we our march towards Birnam.

[Exeunt, marching.]

SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.
[Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.]

MACBETH.
 * Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
 * Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane
 * I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
 * Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
 * All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus,—
 * "Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
 * Shall e'er have power upon thee."—Then fly, false thanes,
 * And mingle with the English epicures:
 * The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
 * Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

[Enter a Servant.]


 * The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!
 * Where gott'st thou that goose look?

SERVANT.
 * There is ten thousand—

MACBETH.
 * Geese, villain?

SERVANT.
 * Soldiers, sir.

MACBETH.
 * Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
 * Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
 * Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine
 * Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

SERVANT.
 * The English force, so please you.

MACBETH.
 * Take thy face hence.

[Exit Servant.]


 * Seyton!—I am sick at heart,
 * When I behold—Seyton, I say!- This push
 * Will chair me ever or disseat me now.
 * I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
 * Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
 * And 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's 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 diseas'd;
 * 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, despatch.—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, senna, 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.

[Exeunt all except Doctor.]

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

[Exit.]

SCENE IV. Country near Birnam wood.
[Enter, with drum and colours, 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 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!

[Striking 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.]

SCENE VI. Dunsinane. Before the castle.
[Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.]

MALCOLM.
 * Now near enough; your leafy 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.]

SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the field.
[Alarums. Enter Macbeth.]

MACBETH.
 * They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
 * But, bear-like I must fight the course.—What's he
 * That was not born of woman? Such a one
 * Am I to fear, or none.

[Enter young Siward.]

YOUNG SIWARD.
 * What is thy name?

MACBETH.
 * Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.

YOUNG SIWARD.
 * No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
 * Than any is in hell.

MACBETH.
 * My name's Macbeth.

YOUNG SIWARD.
 * The devil himself could not pronounce a title
 * More hateful to mine ear.

MACBETH.
 * No, nor more fearful.

YOUNG SIWARD.
 * Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
 * I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.

[They fight, and young Siward is slain.]

MACBETH.
 * Thou wast born of woman.—
 * But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
 * Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.

[Exit.]

[Alarums. Enter Macduff.]

MACDUFF.
 * That way the noise is.—Tyrant, show thy face!
 * If thou be'st slain and with no stroke of mine,
 * My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
 * I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
 * Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
 * Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
 * I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
 * By this great clatter, one of greatest note
 * Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
 * And more I beg not.

[Exit. Alarums.]

[Enter Malcolm and old Siward.]

SIWARD.
 * This way, my lord;—the castle's gently render'd:
 * The tyrant's people on both sides do fight;
 * The noble thanes do bravely in the war;
 * The day almost itself professes yours,
 * And little is to do.

MALCOLM.
 * We have met with foes
 * That strike beside us.

SIWARD.
 * Enter, sir, the castle.

[Exeunt. Alarums.]

SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.
[Enter Macbeth.]

MACBETH.
 * Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
 * On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
 * Do better upon them.

[Enter Macduff.]

MACDUFF.
 * Turn, hell-hound, turn!

MACBETH.
 * Of all men else I have avoided thee:
 * But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd
 * With blood of thine already.

MACDUFF.
 * I have no words,—
 * My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
 * Than terms can give thee out!

[They fight.]

MACBETH.
 * Thou losest labour:
 * As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
 * With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:
 * Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
 * I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
 * To one of woman born.

MACDUFF.
 * Despair thy charm;
 * And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd
 * Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
 * Untimely ripp'd.

MACBETH.
 * Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
 * For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
 * And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
 * That palter with us in a double sense;
 * That keep the word of promise to our ear,
 * And break it to our hope!—I'll not fight with thee.

MACDUFF.
 * Then yield thee, coward,
 * And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
 * We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
 * Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
 * "Here may you see the tyrant."

MACBETH.
 * I will not yield,
 * To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
 * And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
 * Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
 * And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
 * Yet I will try the last. Before my body
 * I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
 * And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"

[Exeunt fighting. Alarums.]

[Re-enter fighting, and Macbeth is slain. Exit Macduff, with Macbeth's body.]

[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross, Lennox, Angus, Caithness, Menteith, and Soldiers.]

MALCOLM.
 * I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.

SIWARD.
 * Some must go off; and yet, by these I see,
 * So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLM.
 * Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSS.
 * Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
 * He only liv'd but till he was a man;
 * The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
 * In the unshrinking station where he fought,
 * But like a man he died.

SIWARD.
 * Then he is dead?

ROSS.
 * Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow
 * Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
 * It hath no end.

SIWARD.
 * Had he his hurts before?

ROSS.
 * Ay, on the front.

SIWARD.
 * Why then, God's soldier be he!
 * Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
 * I would not wish them to a fairer death:
 * And, so his knell is knoll'd.

MALCOLM.
 * He's worth more sorrow,
 * And that I'll spend for him.

SIWARD.
 * He's worth no more:
 * They say he parted well, and paid his score:
 * And so, God be with him!—Here comes newer despair.

[Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.]

MACDUFF.
 * Hail, king, for so thou art: behold, where stands
 * The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
 * I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl
 * That speak my salutation in their minds;
 * Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,—
 * Hail, King of Scotland!

ALL.
 * Hail, King of Scotland!

[Flourish.]

MALCOLM.
 * We shall not spend a large expense of time
 * Before we reckon with your several loves,
 * And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
 * Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
 * In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
 * Which would be planted newly with the time,—
 * As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
 * That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
 * Producing forth the cruel ministers
 * Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen,—
 * Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
 * Took off her life;—this, and what needful else
 * That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
 * We will perform in measure, time, and place:
 * So, thanks to all at once, and to each one,
 * Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.

[Flourish. Exeunt.]