Act 5 Macbeth

Scene 1^°

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

5 field, I have seen her rise from her bed,

throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her

closet,^° take forth paper, fold it, write

upon ’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and

again return to bed; yet all this while in a

10 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

15 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

20 should.

GENTLEWOMAN Neither to you nor anyone,

having no witness to confirm

my speech.

Enter Lady [Macbeth], with a taper.

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very

25 guise, and, upon my life, fast asleep.

Observe her. Stand close.^° [They stand aside.]

DOCTOR How came she by that light?

GENTLEWOMAN Why, it stood by her. She has

light by her continually. ’Tis her command.

30 DOCTOR You see her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMAN Ay, but their sense are shut.

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

GENTLEWOMAN It is an accustomed action with

35 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

40 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,

45 and afeard? What need we fear who knows

it, when none can call our power to

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account? Yet who would have thought the

old man to have had so much blood in him?

50 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

55 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

60 she has known.

LADY MACBETH Here’s the smell of the blood still.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten

this little hand. O, o, o!

DOCTOR What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely

65 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.^°

70 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

75 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

80 me your hand. What’s done cannot be

undone. To bed, to bed, to bed! Exit Lady.

DOCTOR Will she go now to bed?

GENTLEWOMAN Directly.

DOCTOR Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds

85 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,^°

90 And still^° keep eyes upon her. So, good night.

My mind she has mated,^° and amazed my sight.

I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMAN Good night, good Doctor.

Exeunt.

Scene 2^°

Drum and colors. 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.^°

5 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,

10 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

15 He cannot unbuckle his distempered^° cause

Within the belt of rule.

ANGUS Now does he feel

His secret murders sticking on his hands;

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Now minutely^° revolts upbraid^° his faith-breach.^°

Those he commands move only in command,^°

20 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 pestered^° senses to recoil and start,

When all that is within him does condemn

Itself for being there?

25 CAITHNESS Well, march we on

To give obedience where ’tis truly owed.

Meet we the med’cine 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

30 To dew^° the sovereign^° flower and drown the weeds.

Make we our march towards Birnam.

Exeunt, marching.

Scene 3^°

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

5 All mortal consequences^° have pronounced 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

10 Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Enter Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced 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,^°

15 Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?^°

Death of thy^° soul! Those linen cheeks of thine

Are counselors 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

20 When I behold^° — Seyton, I say! — This push^°

Will cheer^° me ever, or disseat^° me now.

I have lived long enough. My way^° of life

Is fall’n into the sere,^° the yellow leaf,

And that which should accompany old age,

25 As^° honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have, but in their stead

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath

Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.

Seyton!

Enter Seyton.

SEYTON What’s your gracious pleasure?

30 MACBETH What news more?

SEYTON All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.

MACBETH I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.

Give me my armor.

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SEYTON ’Tis not needed yet.

35 MACBETH I’ll put it on.

Send out more horses. Skirr^° the country round.

Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.

How does your patient, Doctor?

DOCTOR Not so sick, my lord,

40 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,

45 And with some sweet oblivious^° antidote

Cleanse the stuffed 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.

50 Come, put mine armor on. Give me my staff.^° [Attendants arm him.]

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,

55 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.

60 MACBETH Bring it^° after me. —

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Till Birnam Forest comes to Dunsinane. Exeunt [all but the Doctor].

DOCTOR Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.]

Scene 4^°

Drum and colors. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, 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

5 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.T

SIWARD We learn no other but^° the confident tyrant

Keeps^° still in Dunsinane and will endure^°

Our setting down before^° ’t.

10 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 constrainèd things

Whose hearts are absent too.

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MACDUFF Let our just censures

15 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,

20 But certain issue strokes must arbitrate^° —

Towards which advance the war.^°

Exeunt, marching.

Scene 5^°

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and soldiers, with drum and colors.

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.

5 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 within of women.
What is that noise?

SEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord. [He goes to the door.]

MACBETH I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

10 The time has been my senses would have cooled^°

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 supped full with horrors;

Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,

Cannot once start me.^°

[Seyton returns.]

15 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.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

20 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

25 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.

30 MESSENGER Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do ’t.

MACBETH Well, say, sir.

MESSENGER As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

The wood began to move.

35 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 shall thou hang alive

40 Till famine cling^° thee. If thy speech be sooth,^°

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

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I pull in resolution,^° and begin

To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend

That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam Wood

45 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,

50 And wish th’ 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 6^°

Drum and colors. Enter Malcolm, 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

5 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^° tonight,

Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

MACDUFF Make all our trumpets speak! Give them all breath,

10 Those clamorous harbingers^° of blood and death.

Exeunt. Alarums continued.

Scene 7^°

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly,

But bearlike 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.

5 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.

10 MACBETH No, nor more fearful.

YOUNG SIWARD Thou liest, abhorrèd tyrant! With my sword

I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st. Fight, and young Siward slain.^°

MACBETH Thou wast born of woman.

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,

Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.

Exit.

Alarums. Enter Macduff.

15 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,

20 Or else my sword with an unbattered edge

I sheathe again undeeded.^° There thou shouldst be;^°

By this great clatter one of greatest note

Seems bruited.^° Let me find him, Fortune,

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And more I beg not. Exit. Alarums.

Enter Malcolm and Siward.

25 SIWARD This way, my lord. The castle’s gently rendered:^°

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.^°

30 SIWARD Enter, sir, the castle.

Exeunt. Alarum.

Scene 8^°

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, hellhound, turn!

MACBETH Of all men else I have avoided thee.

5 But get thee back! My soul is too much charged

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!^° Fight. Alarum.

MACBETH Thou losest labor.

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant^° air

10 With thy keen sword impress^° as make me bleed.

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;

I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.

MACDUFF Despair^° thy charm,

And let the angel^° whom thou still^° hast served

15 Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb

Untimely^° ripped.

MACBETH Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,

For it hath cowed my better part of man!^°

And be these juggling^° fiends no more believed

20 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!^°

25 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.

30 Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last.^° Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

And damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Exeunt, fighting. Alarums.

Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain. [Exit Macduff with Macbeth’s body.] Retreat,^° and flourish. Enter, with drum and colors,^° Malcolm, Siward, Ross, thanes, and soldiers.

35 MALCOLM I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

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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.

40 He only lived but till he was a man,

The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed

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

45 Must not be measured 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 knolled.

50 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 comfort.

Enter Macduff, with Macbeth’s head.

MACDUFF Hail, King! For so thou art. Behold where stands^°

55 Th’ usurper’s cursèd head. The time is free.^°

I see thee compassed with thy kingdom’s pearl,^°

That speak my salutation in their minds,

Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:

Hail, King of Scotland!

60 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

65 In such an honor named. What’s more to do

Which would be planted newly with the time,^°

As calling home our exiled friends abroad

That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,

Producing forth^° the cruel ministers^°

70 Of this dead butcher and his fiendlike 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.

75 So, thanks to all at once and to each one,

Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.

Flourish. Exeunt omnes.