Macbeth (Including The Biography of the Infamous Author). William Shakespeare

SERVANT.

       There is ten thousand—

       MACBETH.

       Geese, villain?

       SERVANT.

       Soldiers, sir.

       MACBETH.

       Go prick thy face and overred 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 nearDunsinane: a Wood in view.

       [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.